


Sorry, Baby XOXO

by wellthizizdeprezzing



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Assassins, F/F, International agents, Obsessive Love, Philosophy, Plot Twists, Psychology, Role Reversal, Slow Burn, Take nothing at face value, Villanelle is so soft for Eve, complicated feelings, kinda a slow burn, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-01-21 09:38:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 45,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthizizdeprezzing/pseuds/wellthizizdeprezzing
Summary: An assassin and an intelligence officer walk into a bar...and nothing is the same ever again.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 99
Kudos: 598





	1. Diamonds are A Girl's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So, I swore to myself that I wouldn't write a KE fanfic because I wasn't sure I could grasp the characters right. But well...here I am, unable to hold back. Granted, it's an AU so I won't be as constrained to the characteristics nd have wiggle room in my writing.  
Let me know what ya think.

Eve stares into her beer. It's bitter, matching her perfectly as of this moment. She runs a hand through her messy hair, barely able to concentrate on her surroundings right now. She's haggard. Worn down by life. Embroiled in inner conflict.

She wants to cry. Wants to scream. Wants to.....wants to punch someone or something.

Her hand grips tightly on the half empty glass as she catches her bottom lip in between her teeth. She's contemplating smashing this glass, watching the slivers of it flay out like innards bursting. Watching the liquid foam and puddle, like freshly spilled blood.

She's feeling too hectic. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to be here. To be outside.

The crush of the semi full bar feels overbearing suddenly and she wants to leave.

All the sounds and sights flood her now. Half drunk girls hanging onto each other, stumbling from the bathroom. Men laughing and talking loudly as they debate politics or sports.

The smell of sweat, alcohol. Curling around her. Soaking into her clothes.

The bright buzz of the TV as it plays a late news report. They've found another body. Another link in the case of the serial killer that's been rampaging around the UK. A link that leads to a dead end.

She's too miserable to care about the lifeless face they show her on screen.

She forces herself to chug down the rest of her beer, making a face as it assaults her taste buds and then slams the glass down with too much force. But before she can leave someone's sliding into the bar stool next to hers.

“Two glasses of the finest wine you have, for me and this charming woman here.”

Eve stops in the process of buttoning up her jacket. It's chilly out but not cold enough for the jacket. She must admit, it's the emptiness inside her that causes this temperature.

She takes a look at the woman whose sat down next to her. Unconventionally close. She's young, attractive. Blonde, with intense cat like eyes she turns to Eve with expectancy in them.

It takes a moment for Eve to respond, lost in admiring the woman's stylish pin stripe suit, entirely out of place here in this dingy good forsaken bar. Her face is makeup less and looks stunning even like this, bared naked. “Uh, who are you?”

“Just a friend.” The woman tilts her head coyly, assessing Eve. Her words have a bounce to them. A playful quality that give an open gaze into how this woman is confident. And why shouldn't she be? Her life probably wasn't falling apart at the seams.

“A friend who buys a stranger a drink?” Eve prompts, as the wine arrives. It's the most expensive bottle the bar owns, which probably isn't much on quality given the squalor and dank décor but Eve gives props to the woman for trying.

“Ah,” says the woman softly, popping her brow like she has come to a discovery. “But I'm not a stranger and nor are you if you're my friend.” She takes a sip of the drink, eyes never leaving Eve's. Eve slumps more into her seat, relaxing. She guesses she might be staying a while; this woman is intriguing. And she helps soothe the ache inside her. It's nice to forget it....a bit. She won't have to resort to other methods of dealing with it.

Eve takes the wine, sips it. All while the woman watches her. Her direct gaze is flattering. Some would call it unnerving, but call Eve touch starved because she craves it. Can feel it ghosting down her figure. The wine and it warm her insides.

“This is nice,” Eve compliments as the sweet wine floods her mouth, but whether she is talking about the drink or the presence of the woman is hidden to both of them. Whereas the beer had made her even more bitter, this wine turns it all around. Her mood sweetens a bit.

“A woman like you shouldn't be drinking foul beer. I'm sure you have better taste than some man's beverage.”

That could almost be an innuendo. Man's beverage....maybe it's not. Just a feeler sent out by this woman to see if Eve's straight. Or maybe not. Maybe it's an innocent statement. Eve decides it's an innuendo. Just because it would make her happier if it was.

“Well, I wasn't really planning on coming out tonight. But I needed to be out of the house.”

“Why?”

“I'm uh- well- actually I'm sure you wouldn't want to hear this,” she changes her mind. She doesn't need to share this with some woman.

“Elle.”

“Elle?”

“That's my name,” Elle leans in, crowing Eve's space. But not in a bad way. More like filling it. With that confidence of hers.

“Eve. Pol- I mean-”

“It's okay, I won't stalk you if you tell me your last name,” Elle teases.

“No, it's not that.” Eve shakes her head. Looks down into her wine. It's so red. A bloody lovely shade of red. She doesn't want to talk about her private life. But, it sort of bursts out of her. Maybe it's best if she does talk about it. Because if she doesn't, she might erupt. “My husband and I got divorced.” And it had nearly broken her bank.

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that,” Elle says, dragging her lips down into a sympathetic frown. Eve doesn't like how it looks on her face, so she wants to stop the descent of her lips from furthering. “No- it's fine. I'm over it.”

“You're not,” Elle makes a bold move, laying her hand on top of Eve's. It's warm- hot almost. Like the comforting touch of sunlight after a harsh winter. Eve's is cold. She can't shrug off the hand because she consumes the heat.

An image of naked but heated bodies sliding across each other enters her mind. She doesn't shake it away either.

Elle's hand is laying on the hand on which Eve has her ring on still. “You have his ring.”

“Yea,” Eve chuckles dryly. Maybe she's not as over him as she thought she was. She knows she's not over the hurt. “The asshole cheated on me. Didn't know he had it in him.”

“Was he not handsome enough?”

“No. He was good looking. Proper. He was just....so boring. And my job, it takes me away for long time periods. And I have to work a lot. And he just....he just got lonely. So he cheated on me. And I should have seen it coming but I didn't. God, he was just _so_ boring.” It spills out of her and she gulps down some wine to stop more from coming out.

“So why don't you get rid of this ring.” Elle's slender fingers play with the golden band.

“It's worth a lot. I want to sell it,” Eve responds with.

Elle arches her brow in that way that tells Eve she's dug deep into that response and knows there is more to it.

“I'm still....dealing with the repercussions. Divorce nearly cleaned me out,” she said bitterly. “And I look at this ring, and I allow myself to just hate him. Hate myself for letting this happen. Hate for how long I was attached to that boring sack of shit.” She shakes her head and it's cathartic to be nasty like this.

“Come with me,” Elle says and Eve looks oddly at her. Elle is stroking the back of Eve's hand, head tilted in that cat like assessing way of hers.

When Eve doesn't respond, Elle continues. “I swear you have nothing to worry about. I'm not the serial killer on the news.”

“Well, that certainly assures me,” Eve says sarcastically.

“We need some fresh air. Some quiet to talk more.”

Eve shakes her head. “I already told you too much.”

“But I haven't told you anything,” is the immediate response. “Aren't you the least bit curious about your new friend?” and there's a baby pout on her lips.

She tries again when Eve doesn't respond. “I won't sleep with you. Unless you want me too,” she adds quickly at the end.

That puts to rest questions about her sexuality.

Eve heaves out a sigh. Well, what does she have to lose? She's already lost her house, her husband, and her friend group. All she has is her job and the lingering resentment on her finger. They leave the wine and walk out. The streets are near empty the further they get from the bars and the lights block out the stars in the inky night sky.

“So...” Eve trails off, wondering what it is Elle can tell her. She already knows the woman has money. She's prancing around in an expensive suit. But Elle doesn't respond, leading the way to overlook a canal.

She turns, leans on it, elbows up. Smug grin on her face. “I'm not staying in town long.”

“Oh.” Eve hadn't expected this- well she did, Elle looks like she does work that takes her far from home, Eve just hadn't expected it to be said so openly. She stops by Elle, but not quite leaning on the stone banister. She plays with the ring on her finger. Elle's eyes snap down to it. “But....I did make a promise to myself.”

And what was it?

Elle's hands come over hers, slip the ring from her finger before Eve notices. And then it's sailing out in the air, into the water with a plop that is masked by Eve's harsh gasp.

“What-why-?”

Eve's stammering is cut off when Elle digs into her suit pocket and one hand still on Eve's to hold it there, slips something on instead.

Eve doesn't say anything for a while. The water sloshes around them.

“Do you make it a habit of carrying rings to randomly give to women?” Eve asks, gazing at the thing in shock and wonder. The rock is huge. Niko would never give her one like this. Would never think of it. Why did women have such better tastes?

“No, not to random women,” Elle says, all smiles now. Toothy smiles and hands in pocket.

Eve narrows her eyes. “Did we meet before?” Cold cuts through her chest. In her mind she runs through all the times she-

Elle shakes her head. “You saved my life once. So, now I'm here to save yours.”

And with that she turns on her heel, like she hadn't delivered life changing information, and walks away, hands in pocket still. Eve runs a few steps after her. “Elle!” she calls out. The blonde woman doesn't turn around.


	2. I'll be Right Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Why must we suffer like this? Why can't season three be out already? :(

Eve lays in bed, looking at the ring in the dark. It glints, even without light.

Thousands of questions rush through her head.

None of them make sense. None of them slow enough for her to grasp onto and ponder. They slip by like fish. Slippery and cold.

She gets up, checks the hotel mini fridge, needing something to quench the thirst in her throat. All she has is alcohol. So she cracks open one bottle, snorts it down. Maybe this will help her go to sleep.

She goes for the second bottle, then the third. Once she finishes she lays back down on bed, the room spinning around her. Like she's on a merry go round into another dimension.

_Who is Elle?_ Is the last and the only concrete thought in her mind before she drifts off.

* * *

She's just making coffee that morning, TV blasting with news speculating on the cops trying to make connections on the murders that have the UK shook, when her cup shatters in her hand.

She's pretty sure its not an old cup, nor did she clutch it hard enough for it to break. But there it is, ceramic and coffee mixed together in a sloppy puddle on the floor. She looks at it, at the coffee dripping down her fingers, scalding them. She turns and looks at the window. There's a hole in it.

A bullet shaped hole.

Stupidly she goes towards it, fingers tracing over the sharp edges of it. How did her window not shatter under the impact? The hotel must have spent good money on them.

She just steps away when another bullet whiz's in, missing her head. Something else shatters. The hotel will not like this- they're probably going to charge her for this. And then there's knocking on her door. Intrusive, abrasive. Urgent.

She opens the door up without bothering to look whose on the other end.

Elle's there. In another suit- geometric. Wearing another braid-French.

"You need to leave right now-"

"How do you know where I-"

But Elle is pulling her out of the room, hand on hers. "There's an assassin after you."

"Fuck's sake. They didn't even let me enjoy my coffee," Eve grumbles.

Elle shoots her a concerned look.

Eve is allowed to say non sequitur's. She just went through a rough divorce. Her mind is having a hard time finding space for this nonsense happening now.

"How are you going to get me away from them?" Eve asks.

A more sensible question, given Elle's little nod of approval. "Well, I was hoping we could just run away. They've got a sniper on the roof, so we've got to go out through the back. But there might be more people stationed there."

"Or there might not be. They'll probably underestimate me."

"They know what you do. Did."

"They also know what I look like. They won't think much of me."

Elle gives her a smile. "Then you'll have to prove them wrong."

Eve pulls hard, makes them stop in the middle of the emergency staircase they are using. Eyes Elle's suit. She could be hiding anything under it. A gun. A knife. Her true purpose.

"I don't want to. I don't even have anything to protect myself with."

"You have me."

"I can't trust you. You know too much about me too, and I know nothing about you."

Elle looks annoyed by this. They should be running. Not stalling. Like waiting ducks.

"There's poison in your ring. In case you need to use it on someone," she snaps out. 

"You really thought of everything didn't you," Eve smiles, assured. They resume their journey, Eve's thumb fiddling with the ring on the way down, trying to find out how to use it. Now, it's heavy with not just the weight of the jewel but something even more beautiful.

The door bangs open and they exit out into a back alley. There's a man waiting there for them. Nondescript. Tall. Big. Black clothing. Head shaven close.

He reaches inside his jacket to pull out his gun. Elle's faster.

A silent shot cuts through his neck and he falls before she replaces the gun back into the pocket she took it from. "This way," she leads, taking back streets. Eve follows, heart beating in her chest. She feels she should be more confused. But she's not.

This is pay back for what happened. For getting involved in things she has no right in doing so. And who is Elle? Her guardian angel? How did Eve even save her life and cause Elle to subsequently want to save hers?

She's awfully calm for someone who had nothing to do with Eve's world until now. They make it to a sports car. It's flashy. They both know it can get tracked easily. But it's fast. "Get in," Elle instructs. She's impatient to get away, eyes scanning the skies. The roofs. The roads. Like villains will just sprout out of the pavement or fall from the sky.

Eve stands there, stubborn. She's trusted Elle this far, but to trust her further...? "I don't need your help."

"Are you insane? There's killers coming after you."

"It isn't nice to call someone insane. It might upset them," Eve crossed her arms across her chest.

"Eve, I'm trying to save you," Elle hisses.

"If you know so much about me, then surely you know-"

"I know. And I don't care about your job."

Eve is floored by this. Niko knew about Eve's job, not in entirety, and he still didn't like it. But if Elle knew the whole thing, and still- but no, she couldn't know everything. Surely not. Because Eve kept that close to her heart-

"I don't care about my own job either right now. I'm risking it for you. So just get in the damn car!" Elle hisses once more.

Eve contemplates. This could all be a trap. Elle could be an assassin too. Sent for her. She contemplates this. "Look, I'll give you my gun if it makes you feel better," Elle barters.

Oh hell, Eve knew the game was coming to an end. That the noose would have eventually snuck around her neck for what she did. She gets in. Elle mutters a quick thanks under her breath and gets in. The car peels out as soon as she's inside.

One hand on the wheel haphazardly, Elle gives Eve the gun in her suit. It's small. Compact. Efficient.

It feels heavy in Eve's hand. She doesn't know where to put it. So she puts it on her lap where Elle can easily reach for it.

"Now what? Taking me somewhere to kill me?" Eve asks grimly.

"If I had wanted to end you, I would have done so last night," is the reply as Elle watches the road. They're moving out of the city. Out into the wilds.

"How romantic," Eve sighs, absent mindedly.

Elle chuckles. But her shoulders do not relax, still tense with worry. She shouldn't be worried. Eve should be and yet Eve is not. She's numb right now.

"We're going to a safe house for now. To speak with some people who can help you."

Eve bristles as this. "I know who those people are." It's a trap. Why did she trust Elle? She was stupid for doing so.

She leverages the gun at her face. "Stop the car."

Elle's face darkens. "No. It is-"

"Stop the car or I swear I will take the both of us out."

"So then go ahead and shoot me," Elle taunts, knowing that to do so would crash them and Eve doesn't want to do it. It's a bluff.

She's right. Eve values her life too much to do it- at least to do it herself.

"Just trust me," Elle repeats firmly.

"How is the fact you're taking me to them a good thing. Don't you know-"

"I've been looking for you for a long thing, Eve. I'm not taking you to them, not yet because I need to figure things out. I'm just..." she sighed and closed her eyes. "This is so fucked. Everything so fucked," she hissed under her breath more to herself.

She has the momentary look of a woman who doesn't seem to be in control of her life entirely anymore. Perhaps in the grips of a strong possession or obsession. Eve can relate. So she lowers the gun.

It felt wrong having it pointed at Elle anyways.

Eve looks out the front. It's begun to drizzle. "If you want me to trust you, start by telling me your real name."

"Picked up on that, did you?" Elle tsks, relaxing a bit now. But she is still on edge. Always watching, observing. She needs to loosen up more. "My code name is Villanelle. But my real name is Oksana."

At this, she lets her real accent replace her British one.

A Russian. How stereotypical of this field. Honestly, it could use some diversity. "It took us a lot to find you."

"Good."

"Not all of us are as eager to meet you as I am," Villanelle answers. Eve finds she likes the nickname. It's elegant. She fiddles with the ring on her finger.

She's figured out how to use it.

"And what will you do after I stay in your safe house for a while? Will you turn me into your superiors?"

"They don't know I'm doing this. I was ordered to find you and-"

"I am quite aware of the guillotine hanging above my head, thanks," Eve says sarcastically, biting her bottom lip as anxiety resurfaces in her over it.

"Is that why maybe your husband cheated on you?" Villanelle murmurs in a low register. It makes Eve snap her head towards her, a bit affronted.

"No. He didn't know."

Villanelle scoffs. "Of course he didn't. He looks like someone stuck a mustache onto a piece of fudge and told it to dance."

Eve laughs at this, taken off guard by the image. "What an odd insult." She shakes her head.

The car speeds on down the dreary road, ending up at a gas station. They're going to change cars here. Eve knows it because they get out, Eve hiding the gun under her jacket while Elle sneaks over to the car idling there as the owner rummages inside for snacks at the station.

She climbs in, Eve after her, both all too familiar to such a thing. They pull the pick up truck out just as guy leaves the station store. He shouts at them but they pull out and rush off. Eve has no idea where the safe house will be but she knows they'll be ditching this car soon too.

"We're going to take the train after this," Villanelle fills in as the night begins to take a hold on the world around them. And Eve can't help but think on the different ways meeting Villanelle in that bar is about to change her life. Because she knows, crossing paths with such a strong character will not leave her unscathed, but whether it be for good or for bad is yet to be seen.

The thought does not spark fear.


	3. Waiting for You

The safe house is far away. It's cold up here. Colder than Eve would like.

"Now what?"

They look out over the hills. Nature surrounds the well hidden gray and green house buried within some cave system. Villanelle shrugs to this. "I don't know. I didn't really think this through. When I heard that they were coming after you, I didn't really think. I acted. _Reacted_," she amended.

"It's a hell of a reaction taking me out here."

"Stay here while I figure things out," Villanelle said with heavy exhaustion all of a sudden. Like someone had flipped a switch in her.

"And what if you figure out to turn me in. Or hurt me?" Eve plays with the necklace around her neck. She's at a huge disadvantage here and she doesn't like it, but honestly, she's used to be disadvantaged by society. She makes them to her advantage. She just needs a bit of time to figure how to make her current situation with an unknown variable known as Villanelle to her benefit.

"I don't think I will...I just need to find a way to throw them off your scent."

"And what- I have to stay here by myself?" _Like some dog? _Rushes through her mind. She never was good at being obedient for too long.

"I'll come visit you. Don't worry, I'll make sure you won't be lonely," Villanelle smiles like she is doing a huge favor. Eve sighs. Whatever. She doesn't care too much about all this anyways. When things go south, she has her own plans.

"I still don't know why you're doing this-"

"You have a week to figure that all out before I come back. Make the most of it," Villanelle cuts in, smiling cheekily and then flouncing off to go wherever she needs to go, leaving Eve all alone in a house that isn't hers.

* * *

Villanelle truly up and leaves Eve alone. In a house that can't seem to be warm ever, even as she blasts the heat. Eve trails through it, frigid fingers touching everything. Décor is sparse and made of mismatched items seemed to be grabbed at random by a blind person.

The walls aren't even painted, just left their rocky texture. It smells of earth and wet things in here and she hates it. Though it does have modern facilities, like water and electricity, she's going to be bored here.

So it's no wonder she breaks the clock on the mantel that just won't stop ticking those long loud ticks, irritatingly announcing each slowly passing minute. And then she breaks some plates and cups for good measure, just throwing them on the floor and relishing the crash they make on impact. And then she cleans it all up.

It makes her feel better. Just a bit. She knows something else entirely that would take this black anger from her but she can't well do it up here, not when she's in hiding.

The second day she spends mainly eating all the good snacks she can find, leaving the cabinets empty. Spends it exploring every nook and cranny of this house. She finds the secret compartment with guns. Nods her head because she respects the selection. One handgun. One mini gun. Two Ak-47's and one glock.

She prefers the knife offering better. She always did feel more aptly suited to them. They were more personal. Precise. Good for cooking. She uses one of them to cut up the fresh cuts of meat in the fridge. The other one, is slipped into the back of her shirt, a cool comforting reminder of protection.

She knows she has the ring, and she's figured out to use it, but that's for when shit really hits the fan. She also feels a bit touched because Villanelle just knew what she liked best. Nobody had yet been able to connect to Eve in such a manner, only ascribing the worst to her, but she was quiet, discrete when they asked her to do her job properly. Naturally, being paid more lent to her doing better on the tasks given.

She cooks dinner and hums, thinking happily on work.

When Friday gets here, she could not be more relieved. The door jangles and in comes Villanelle, alone. Like Eve suspected she would. While she didn't entirely trust it would happen, she knew there would someone with Villanelle coming in at some point. But before that situation arrived, Eve would be gone. She just needed to know what Villanelle's true motivations were. How much they knew about Eve. And then, she would disappear like a ghost.

"Honey, I'm home," Villanelle sings as she swings in, throwing her coat onto the coat rack.

"What did you find out?" Eve asks business like, setting the table for the two of them.

Villanelle pouts as she comes in. "No hello? No how was work? No kiss on the cheek?" she taps a long finger to her soft cheek. Eve ignores her antics. She's hungry.

"Why are there assassins?" Eve asks, chewing on her steak. "I thought your kind had more noble methods of-"

Villanelle gives a shrill bark of laughter here, throwing her back and exposing her long slender neck momentarily. "No, Eve. God, you are so naive, aren't you. How have you survived so long in this field? How has no one killed you yet?" She sits but doesn't eat. Rude. Eve hadn't done anything to the food.

Eve feels offended by this. There is nothing wrong with how she lives her life. "I would say you're being awfully stupid too, with keeping me here from your bosses."

Villanelle shrugs. "That's true. But, then again we all have stupid moments. Some just have them the entirety of their life." A pause, then deliberately, "like Niko."

"I don't want to talk about him anymore." Eve wants him far out of her mind. With his ring gone, it's easier not to think on him and easier not to hate him.

Villanelle shrugs. "I actually went to go visit him."

Eve stops chewing for a second but then continues when she doesn't grow fearful in worry over what Oksana could have done to him, or what Niko could have spilled about Eve to her. Killing him would serve no purpose for the Russian woman, surely.

"Mining him?" Eve asks in disinterest, while maintaining in mind damage control. How much could he have said? She doubted her morning routine or the way she folded her laundry was of interest to anyone. Or would provide much insight about her inner workings.

"He didn't say much," Villanelle shrugs. "Maybe it had to do with how I threatened him. And then forced him to give me his recipe for Shepard's Pie."

A beat. Two beats. Eve blinks slowly. "How do you know I like it?" She doesn't make a big deal advertising it.

Villanelle leans in. "I know a lot of things about you," she whispers and then leans back, finally going to eat her food.

Eve just shakes her head, contemplating her choice of current actions even further.

* * *

"But I would like to know more," Villanelle states when their silent dinner is done and Eve is washing the plates and Oksana is drying them like they are some team.

Eve nearly drops her plate at hearing this. "Don't you already know enough?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," Villanelle clicks her tongue.

"And I'd like to know about what the hell kind of decision you've made about me."

"A trade. You tell me something about yourself and I tell you some information."

"Deal," because Eve's got the higher hand on this. She can give insignificant insight for valuable information. "I like coffee, but only black."

Villanelle files this information away for later. "They don't know you're here."

"Really?" Eve blinks in mild shock. That's a relief. "And what did you tell them?"

"Ah-ah," she tsks, like scolding a child. "Tit for tat."

Eve's eyes slide down to Villanelle's very clothed tits at this. The woman grins at the interaction. She plays with a button there of her suit. "Or would you prefer a real tit for your information."

Eve shakes her head and scrubs the dishes harder. She's no stranger to sexuality or sex. Niko never wanted to try anything new and it always bothered her on how narrow minded he could be to all the pleasure waiting in this world. "No," she says with some effort. "Let's keep this professional."

"Professional? But here I am, wanting to know you. As your _friend_." Eve arches a brow at this. The Russian continues. "I even got you a ring. Only _good friends_ do that." She doesn't mean friends at all with all that pressure put on those words.

Eve ignores this. "What did you tell them?" she presses.

"That I thought I had you but I lost track of you. False alarm."

"And they bought it?"

Villanelle narrows her eyes. "Not everyone there is smart like me." She taps her temple. "And not everyone is as good at hiding as you. I can't believe you were under our noses all this time. Quite cheeky of you."

If Eve was any more juvenile, she would have rolled her eyes at this.

"You owe me three pieces of information," Villanelle states, waiting with an arched brow to hear them. Eve quickly picks things that will not give her away too easily. "Pink is a nice color though I don't wear it. I hate Sundays. And I'll read a good book on occasion. There, satisfied?" Eve asks. She's finished washing the dishes now.

"I can think of many other things that would satisfy me immensely," said coyly, lisping across parted lips.

Eve gave her a gimlet look. "You're really not afraid of me, are you?"

"Why would I be?" a careless shrug as Villanelle put her hands in the pockets of her suit. Yet another suit. This one with floral designs flourishing it. She paced around the kitchen till she was leaning against the stove.

"I could hurt you. Have you captured. We're on opposite sides here. And yet."

"And yet," Villanelle echoed. "I guess you didn't figure it out."

"Figure what out."

"How we met."

"I didn't even think about it." That was a bold faced lie. She had thought about it. Just not a lot or enough to derive an answer.

Villanelle pouts though this time Eve thinks it might be partially authentic. "You wound me."

"I need to know what the game plan is."

"I'm not playing a game."

"Don't be obtuse. Obviously I can't stay here for long. Or for the rest of my life. I have a job, I have a-" she almost says husband. Home. But she stops herself. Not quick enough. Villanelle catches it, cocks her head to the side in that manner of hers.

"You don't have a future Eve. Not right now. You've no husband. No home. No friends who know the real you. And you don't even have your job. If you go back my people are closing in. They'll catch you." She tsks. "And you wouldn't want to be caught by them, would you?"

A disparity of power. Eve hates it. Will rally against it.

"So instead I've let you catch me?" Eve questions but they know there's an answer to this. It's more a fact than an inquiry.

"Think of it like an early retirement."

"I don't want that. And I don't need your protection. I can handle myself." She ran hands through her thick hair, needing it off her neck so she can breathe more. She feels suffocated by the thought of being caged, constrained to this safe house for eternity. "I shouldn't have come here with you. I should have just fucked off."

"No," Villanlle states so strongly, coming up to Eve and grabbing her wrist hard enough to bruise. It catches Eve a bit off guard. Almost like Villanelle was scared Eve would make a run for it right this second, despite Eve's feet being planted firmly on the ground.

"Are you keeping me prisoner here? I don't appreciate that," she hisses, coming face to face with the Russian woman, impeding on what little space they have between each other.

Villanelle works her jaw, the look of possessive panic fading from her eyes as she comes to an internal choice. "Just let me...just give me some time. I want to help. I do." There is earnestness behind those deep eyes of hers. Her grip loosens, thumb caressing Eve's pounding pulse.

There's something else behind this, Eve is certain. Villanelle has an interest in her that lies deeper than Eve saving her life- if she even did. All Eve has is the woman's word on this.

And maybe she is a little bit crazy for agreeing to this insensible idea. Eve is able to take care of herself, she doesn't need someone else doing it for her.

Yet...it's nice to feel taken care of. To not be alone in her own world. To have someone who understood her.

"Fine," she says, and jerks her wrist free.


	4. I'm Not Afraid of the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Updates are going to be every Sunday.

Eve's dreaming.

Dreaming might not be the right word. For, it's the same as always.

Closing her eyes. Seeing their faces. Pale, ashen, facial hair and head hair covered in blood. Some of them are angry. Some are crying. The others are silent. Confused. Giving up.

Those were always the most unsatisfying ones.

Eve sits up, back drenched in sweat and chest heaving.

She always wakes up with chills. Chills that leave her feeling unbalanced. Unsteady.

She needs the touch of something sharp to soothe her. But she doesn't have anything like that here, blurry mind leaving her lacking in her wants. So she digs her nails into the skin of her thighs and presses down and down until she knows she'll leave marks and even then it's not enough.

Her knife- she surely must have left it under the pillow. She can use that- but before she can slide her hand under the material of her pillow, she notices movement in the doorway. She tenses then relaxes.

"Do you make it a habit to watch over sleeping women?"

She knows Villanelle will respond. She's too cocky to not enjoy the sound of her own voice. "No, just you." A beat as she shifts. It's too dark to see her, a curse of this windowless safe house. But the bed dips down and Eve knows Villanelle has sat down. Her scent follows after, denoting her arrival. It's floral but woodsy. Both masculine and feminine. Eve finds she likes it. "You were making noises in your sleep. I grew worried." She reaches out a hand. Eve nearly flinches from it.

But all it does is cup her cool cheek, a thumb stroking calmly.

"What kind of noises."

"Really good ones," Villanelle nods her head, that light playfulness in her voice that doesn't belie how serious she actually is. "I almost thought you were having some fun without me."

Eve snorts. She can't help it. This woman is ridiculous and she loves it. "Don't get cute with me. I'm dangerous."

Villanelle drops her hand, leans in. This close, Eve can see the sheen of her eyes. Wide and empty, not even reflecting Eve's face in their hidden depths. "Dangerously hot."

"Compliments will get you everywhere. But not with me," Eve sighs as she drops back onto her bed covers. A second later Villanelle is crawling over her- Eve's breath holds in her chest with anticipation- and then to the spot next to her. They lie, Eve looking at the ceiling, Villanelle looking at her. Eve breathes out, chest deflating with lowered expectations.

The dark buzzes around them. Comforting.

The dreams have already faded from Eve's mind.

"Why did you do it?"

Eve knows what Villanelle is talking about. She's trying to get inside her head; Eve wants to do the same. So they're playing. Perhaps not a dangerous game, but not a sane one. Because entering their minds requires a degree of twistedness and leaves deep scars on those who try. Niko can attest to that.

"There's a lot of reasons why. I was good at it. The money was good. I enjoyed it. It made me feel alive." Her arm brushes against her bed partner's, revealing that Villanelle is still in her damned suit. Does she never change even to sleep? Or does she not sleep at all?

Eve finds herself falling more easily asleep with the unstable woman in the house. "I could ask you the same about why you entered the field you did."

"Same reasons. But mainly because I was bored. So I wanted to fill my life with interesting things, places, and people."

"I'm one of those."

"Yes, you are."

Eve humphs. "You want to own me?"

"I want to own many pretty things. That's why I have a nice apartment. Nice clothes. You should come to my place sometime."

Eve laughs. She can't help it. "You are unconventional. Why would they ever hire you?"

"Because I got results," Villanelle shrugs, not hurt by Eve's laughter.

"But not now."

A soft beat, before the soft murmuring of, "not now. I just can't seem to help myself."

"Happens when you're a psychopath." She reaches out, grasping at a conclusion she has garnered quickly when being in this woman's presence.

"Mm," Villanelle hums in confirmation. "It doesn't scare you that I am one? That I could have lied about all this? About my connections, my intentions? This could all be an elaborate ruse." Always teasing. Always teasing this one. "Maybe you're just going to be my next victim. Like on the news."

"If you were the serial killer behind all that, I wouldn't fit your type."

"No, I suppose not," Villanelle says with a tired sigh. "They all look like your husband Niko."

Eve freezes at this. Doesn't even breathe. It was obvious now.

"But the police won't get the connections until they meet your husband."

Eve relaxes though she knows, this is what Villanelle does. She finds the missing links between deaths and she profiles and makes connections. And then she moves in for the kill. And yet, Villanelle has made all the right connections about Eve and still done nothing, not even apprehended the perpetrator.

"Maybe I'm thinking I'm here and this is just your soon to be sex dungeon," Eve cuts in, continuing an old thread.

"Sex dungeons are so 80s. I'm hip." Villanelle rests her head on her elbow and looks over at Eve. Eve doesn't look at her still, hands resting on top of her stomach, folded over the other.

"Do you even know what Tik Tok is?"

"Ugh," Villanelle makes a disgusted noise. "I would kill the creator of that dreadful app."

Eve isn't convinced. "I bet you use it."

"Only to send my victims threatening messages about how I'm coming for them."

"That's not scary at all."

"Yes, it is. When I lip sing to 'They're Coming to Take me Away'." Villanelle smiles in the dark. "It's quite frightening. But I forget, you're no fun when you come after the people you're looking for."

"Why should I? It's just a job."

"You can have fun doing your job."

"I don't enjoy it."

"Uh, right," Villanelle says in disbelief. "Or else why would you still be in it?"

"Like I said before: money. And having fun, can mean being sloppy. Are you sloppy at your job, Villanelle?"

Villanelle lies down. "I like to show off."

"See. Sloppy. They'll catch onto you. And then what?"

"I can protect myself." Assured. Without a doubt. "Unlike you. You do your job, and just hide. You would have been killed if I hadn't saved you."

Eve snorts. "I doubt that. If I made it out this long, then I can continue to do so. People don't take me seriously because I'm an Asian woman." Eve chuckles because she barely even has to look into getting disguises. She can slip in anywhere under the guise of being hired help or of being a confused tourist who didn't speak English. "Why did you even want to find me. And cut the bullshit about justice and about our past. What about current me pulled you in?"

Villanelle is silent so long Eve begins to think she's fallen asleep. And maybe she has. But a long sigh is blown out next to her. "Your hair. You have wonderful hair."

"You are so vain," Eve says with a small chuckle, because she doesn't happen to like her hair too much. It's hard to tame or to do anything special with it.

"I like what I like. I also like that you're an older more mature woman. That you're smart. That you're not like others," Villanelle lists. "It's what drew me to you, even before I saw your picture. Even before I knew who you were."

"What did I tell you about complimenting me?" Eve warns.

"Should I list things I hate about you instead?"

"That would be preferable."

"You are odd," Villanelle says in amazement.

"You said you liked that about me," Eve points out, looking over at Villanelle now, self conscious.

"I did. I do. Things I hate about you: your husband."

"He's not in my life anymore."

"I know he's not. I'm glad for it. Otherwise I would have had to take matters into my own hands."

Eve settles more firmly into the sheets. The idea of someone killing for her...well, it shouldn't excite her this much, should it? But it was rare to find someone with that sort of commitment. Marriage meant nothing. It could always be dissolved and then nothing would be left of it. But killing someone for a loved one...that murder, that life taken, would forever be etched upon their conscious, upon their guilt, upon their souls. It could not be given back like a ring could. There would be no freedom like that of being newly single. Because the person couldn't come back to life.

"You don't have the guts for it."

Villanelle rolls over to Eve, unbearably close this time. Her warmth radiates to the cold woman. "I can show you." A hushed whisper of dark promise.

"You're such a romantic," Eve says and it's hard to tell if sarcasm is in her voice. Or something like awe. Maybe this relationship will amount to something. Who knows?

"I could be more romantic. Just say the word."

But Eve is exhausted now by the added weight of Villanelle's statement. She wants to sleep. "Good night," she says coldly, and turns her back on Villanelle. She can feel the disappointment radiating off of Villanelle for a long time as the blonde woman has to settle on the fact she has been dismissed. Eve half expects to find Villanelle's strong hand reaching from behind her and closing the airways of her throat as retaliation for that.

Instead, Eve is disappointed when the blonde woman simply slips out of bed, closing the door to the room with a defeated sigh of "good night, Eve."

When Eve comes out of her room tomorrow morning it's a Monday meaning Villanelle is gone to work. But on the table, as a gift to her, is a box labeled La Villanelle. Eve opens it up and sees a shirt inside. Exactly her style but a bit more glamorous.

She wears it when she makes dinner.


	5. Domesticated Rat or Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Accidentally uploaded the last chapter instead of this one.   
If you squint real hard you can see the trainwreck romance coming up.

Was it sad that Eve had gotten used to the safe house? Had gotten used to the routine that she and Villanelle had for the past month and a half?

Eve decided it was going to be sad.

She resisted the urge to look at the clock. Villanelle should have been here by now. Their dinner was getting cold. Where was she? Was she hurt? Was she planning a trap for Eve? Eve hates uncertainty. It makes a beast of those rational minded and an absolute mess of those with less mental capacity to reasoning.

She sighs and goes to the hidden panel where she knows the guns are stored. She takes out the glock and makes sure there are bullets there. Just in case. As soon as she finishes checking, the front door is opening. Eve cautiously goes into the next room, listening and out of sight with the door.

The gun is hidden for now. Useless for now.

Two voices. One Villanelle's and the other a stranger.

The gun Eve is holding behind her back shakes a bit as her grip tightens.

"Why'd you take me all the way out here. To our safe house?"

"Because I need help. I need _your_ help," Villanelle says and then their foot steps are getting closer and they're in the same room as Eve is.

The woman Villanelle brought in startles so badly she bumps into Villanelle who stands behind her. "Shit," she curses as Eve stares blankly at her and back at Villanelle who is soothing the woman.

"Relax Christina. Relax."

"How can I when she's right there!" she blurts out, patting her hands over her body as if she might find a concealed weapon there that she brought with herself for situations like these. She doesn't. "Oh my god," she blurts out, stepping away from Villanelle with a look of betrayal. "You've been hiding her?"

"Uh, yes?" Villanelle says, confused by this reaction.

_"Why_?" a shrill cry of disbelief. 

"Why not."

"God." Christina pinches her brows as Eve watches how Villanelle will resolve this mess.

"We've been looking for her everywhere and you lied to us about where she was! That is not okay!" She exclaims, jerking out her hand. "Why would you do that?"

"I was hoping you could help me with this. I thought maybe I could trust you with this." Villanelle is standing slumped. Casual.

Eve knows casual on people like them actually means high alert and about to spring into motion.

"Trust you on this? Villanelle, have you lost your damned mind?" Christina shakes her head, upset. She digs out a phone. "I can't believe you did this. I'm going to have to turn her in."

Eve whips out her gun right away.

There's a loud bang, followed by two smaller ones as first the phone drops from Christina's hand and then her body does.

Eve lowers the gun she didn't fire. Villanelle lets her hang for a while as she pouts down at the body now staining her carpet. "Do you know how hard this will be to clean up from this carpet?"

Eve sighs out heavily. "What are you going to do with them?"

"I'll come up with a cover story." She kicks their body. They jolt but don't come back alive. "Pity, I really liked them. You hide the body."

"I didn't ask for this." Eve is taken aback by this request.

"Consider it rent. For staying here."

"I don't want to stay here."

Villanelle shrugs. "Just get rid of her before she starts to stink up."

Eve groans. How the hell is she supposed to get rid of a body that's not her business? She thinks she read somewhere that lime powder helps. Acid, perhaps.

She needs gloves. And a bucket.

Villanelle holsters her gun and turns around to make a phone call.

* * *

"What the hell were you thinking?" Eve rounds on Villanelle once she's done hiding the body. She barely knew the woman and she feels bad about the carelessness of the exchange.

Villanelle speaks. "I was thinking maybe I should go to a party. I got an invite out to go-"

"I mean about bringing this woman here!" Eve exclaims.

"You don't need to shout."

"Am I hurting your sensitive ears? Then good, because what you did was incredibly stupid. It puts both of us at risk."

"I had everything under control."

"No you didn't."

"I did," Villanelle rolls her eyes. She hates it when her flaws are pointed out to her. She's egotistical that way. Eve decides not to push on that before Villanelle cracks.

"And your goal was...?"

"To have her help us disappear. She could have wiped out our records, given us fake identities. She was good at that." And now, Eve thinks darkly, Christina was wiped out too.

Eve raises her brows in an 'and this was your grand plan' motion.

"Oh, don't give me that," Villanelle says, annoyed. "I thought she would actually help us. She always was a sappy romantic."

"She didn't even listen to you profess your grand 'love for me' before she pulled out the phone, so, not much of a romantic there," Eve points out steely. Villanelle's blunder almost cost them both their lives. And it still might if word gets out.

Eve's legs shakes. She's getting antsy. She cannot stay here any longer. Villanelle herself is in a territory she's never been in before, and that will not bond well for them both.

"What did you make for dinner. I'm starved," Villanelle says, softly changing the topic because she can see she has upset Eve more than normal.

"It's cold now. Because you decided to bring a causality to our door step." Eve turns on her heel to go to the kitchen to heat it up and Villanelle makes a talking motion with her hand to mock Eve's scolding words.

* * *

Was it nice that Villanelle had made Shephard's pie for Eve? And just the way she liked it. Really, indistinguishable from Niko's.

Eve decided it was nice.

"This is nice," she tells Villanelle who's shoving her face with it right now. She has an odd way of eating, elbows parked heavily as her top half hangs over the plate, as if afraid someone would snatch it away from her at any time.

"You made me dinner many times. I thought you might enjoy me doing something for you."

Eve fiddles with her ring as they stare at each other from opposite ends of the table, that same intense stare from before.

"What are we going to do now?" Eve asks, and for once it's not about her uncertain future. She's already got something planned out. She only needs to think it through. And maybe, despite her haste, she's not really hasty in wanting to leave. Not entirely.

Last night had been unpredictable. Had broken up their rote. Eve could stand being here a bit longer because of it.

"What do you want to do?"

"Movie marathon. You ever seen the Harry Potter series?"

"No. I didn't really have a childhood."

Eve nods her head. "I hope this place has cable. We can watch it."

"No cable because too easy to trace this place. But I can go out and buy something for us."

"Good. I have a list of movies we should watch over the weekend."

Villanelle smiles and it's utterly disarming. But she looks hopeful at them spending time together and Eve would hate to take that from her.

Eve cleans the dishes, Villanelle goes to buy the movies. She comes back half an hour later with most of them. "I got everything I could put my hands on."

"Good, we'll start with Harry Potter," Eve states and slides the disc in. She's prepared the couch, with blankets and snacks. Even a bottle of wine. "The movies are about a young boy who discovers magic."

"Magic isn't real," Villanelle snorts but sits down on the couch, pouring some wine for the both of them. She hands Eve the glass as Eve sits down, the movie starting to play.

Eve loves these movies because of the magic in them. She watched them as an older teen and they captured her heart with the charm in them.

Villanelle's not a fan.

It's apparent from the way she squirms on the couch and throws her head back and puffs out air in a childish manner that she doesn't find the movies worth her time. "You don't like this?" Eve asks, hugging a pillow to her chest, though the answer will be obvious.

"No. This movie is foolish. Transparent walls? Moving staircases? Sticks of wood that perform magic?" She sticks out her tongue in distaste.

Eve sighs. Perhaps she can not enlighten Villanelle in this manner. "Let's watch something else. I think I have something that might interest you greatly."

Eve turns off the Harry Potter movie and pops in the Silence of the Lambs instead.


	6. Marathon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You can come find me at Villanellebeing-gay-is Killing Eve on tumblr if you wanna talk Killing Eve or just scream at me about how amazing the show is.

It doesn't take long with this movie.

Villanelle sits up and watches with interest. Her eyes flicker back and forth across the screen. Silence of the Lambs has always been a classic and it will continue to be so. Eve is able to watch it peacefully because Villanelle no longer disrupts her with fidgeting and puffing out air that bothers Eve's concentration. They are two thirds in when Villanelle finally speaks, her eyes unglued from the screen.

"This movie makes me want to kiss you," Villanelle confesses. Leans in on the couch. Eve doesn't move away or closer. Villanelle's arm is creeping up on the back of the sofa.

Eve snorts. "A movie about a cannibal makes you want to kiss me?"

"Well, eating out someone is a thing," the woman waggles her brows. "But only you."

"You are not romantic at all."

"Should I be? Should I try wooing you more?" Villanelle asks.

"For one, pick a better movie next time to pop up such a sentiment."

Villanelle leans back. "Maybe you like a surprise kiss. Like when you're talking and I shut you-"

Villanelle finds her mouth paused by Eve's on hers. The kiss is warm. Slightly wet. Villanelle gives out a surprised half whimper half moan before Eve is pulling away. And watching the movie like nothing happened. Villanelle slowly sinks back into the cushions, eyes wide. Did that really just happen-?

"You are a dick, you know," she states after nothing else happens for a good ten minutes. After her lips stop tingling.

"You were talking too much. And my favorite part was coming up."

"Like I said. A dick."

"Shush now."

"...can I at least cuddle you?"

"Just don't get in the way of my popcorn," Eve throws casually over her shoulder as Villanelle slowly slides over to her and places her head down tentatively on Eve's shoulder like Eve will snap her head off at any second.

Villanelle's warmth is seeping into Eve. She likes this. Who knew a psychopath could be so cuddly?

Silence, except for the movie playing, and then, "if you could go anywhere, where would you go?"

"Away from you. Because apparently you are a terrible movie watching companion," Eve says deadpan.

Villanelle pouts. "Are movies more important to you than people?"

This intrigues Eve. She knows the answer she should say, naturally, but speaks honestly instead. "Sometimes. Movies don't get on my nerves."

"They can, if they're badly written or planned."

"I make sure never to watch those."

"Surely you can't account for them all and accidentally watch a bad one."

Eve heaves out a sigh. Seems Villanelle is intent on talking through this movie too. She shifts and this causes Villanelle to lift her head up so they can see each other. "But I can always walk out or stop watching. With people it's a bit harder because they judge you for it. I dislike annoying people. And boring people. So, it depends on the person and what person they are. Then, I value them a lot. But otherwise, I don't give two shits about what happens to them."

"I like people," Villanelle said, twirling a lock around her finger. "I like getting in their heads. I like knowing what they think. Because they're all so different from me and I never know what little thought crosses their little minds. And being around them, makes me feel like I'm part of them."

"Until you do something wrong and they vindicate you. Burn you at the stake."

Villanelle takes a thoughtful sip of her wine. "Did you ever take philosophy?"

"I don't waste my time on nonsense. On things that don't exist but could."

"And psychology is so much different than that? It's all guess work based on reason and emotion and theory. We might never be right about anything."

"But you're right. All the time." This is sarcastically said.

"Yes. Always." Playful tone and yet so serious.

"Is anyone else ever right all the time?"

"Time is. It marches steadily on and on, not giving a shit about stopping for someone who needs it to stop. Or waiting for someone to catch up. And waiting on empty time...is the worst," Villanelle's eyes drift off, like she is imagining a scene elsewhere.

Eve can imagine her, as a small scared girl, in some dilapidated orphanage in Russia. Staring outside the window, huddled together to keep warm as the chill from outside seeped in, destroying her warmth, happiness and soul.

Can imagine the little girl cursing her fate. Cursing her parents for leaving her behind.

"Were you an orphan?" the day dream is too poignant to discard. She needs to know.

Villanelle throws her an offended look. "No. I had very rich parents. Parents who spoiled me. I just ran away from home because I hated how controlling they were. 'Oksana you must get perfect grades.' 'Oksana you mustn't kiss girls or God will send you to hell.' 'Oksana we're going to marry you off to this man whose sixty years old so you will be his child bride but it will be okay because we'll have more money.'" Villanelle makes a spitting sound but doesn't actually spit. "That's what I think of them and their stupid rules."

"You haven't seen them in a while, have you."

"No. Once I ran away I never looked back."

"Have they ever discovered you?"

"They tried, but they failed. And I don't intend on going back to them, not for all the Rubles in the world." Villanelle directs her gaze at Eve. Always, always looking this one. Like she's afraid if she takes her eyes off of Eve she will turn into mist. "But I know you are an orphan."

Naturally, Villanelle would know this. "I was adopted fairly quickly, so I don't know if it counts." Only a year. Because who wouldn't want a 'smart Asian baby' to flaunt.

"Still, your original parents didn't want you. That must have hurt."

"I barely knew them. And I don't really care to find them."

"What if I told you I found them. That I could show them to you."

Eve is quiet. She will not be tempted. Not by some restless part of her that wants to know why she was left. Why they couldn't love her. It's not an aching need to be loved by them though, that eats at her. She just wants to show up and rub it in their faces how much better off she is without them. That she doesn't want anything they can offer her. Not anymore, not since she found out she was adopted at the age of six and broke her arm out of anger. Her adoptive parents had been quick to fix that, to fix any problem or need she wanted.

They wanted her to be happy. They wanted her to do well.

But they couldn't fix every last part of her and make her perfect. They failed and she hated seeing the failure on their faces when she couldn't be just right. "No."

"I could kill them for you. Let you watch. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Villanelle happily crunches on some popcorn.

Eve had thought about this several times but, the answer was always the same. "Murder isn't the solution to everything. And for some things, it's not worth the effort to do it."

"Don't be a buzz kill," Villanelle tsks.

"Can you watch the movie?" Eve grumbles and Villanelle makes a show of rolling her eyes. But, she settles down under her blankets and stays as still as she can. When Silence of the Lambs ends, Eve pops in Shutter Island next, and then after that they watch the Purge.

"Why are we watching all these murder movies? So much blood and guts," Villanelle complains from how she is buried under the fluffy blankets, only her eyes and head visible.

"I thought you would appreciate them?"

"I see this kind of stuff everyday. I want to watch something happy. Something romantic."

Eve grunts in surprise and in affirmation. She would have never taken the woman for a romantic. "I don't know if I have anything." She peruses through the stacks of rentals, finds one that might be kind of happy. It's not a rom com but it will do. Eve finds herself only half paying attention, more interested in Villanelle's reactions to the movie. Villanelle lets out content hums and shrieks of laughter at points of the movie that aren't meant to be funny but it's just charming and not odd on her.

The hour has grown real late at this point, and Eve finds her head growing heavy despite her best efforts to stay awake. The last thing she remembers is Villanelle speaking her name quietly before Eve falls asleep.

When she wakes up her neck hurts from sleeping with it unsupported. She lets out a low groan and shifts, finding a heavy weight on her. The TV is buzzing from how no one turned it off last night. There's popcorn kernels everywhere. Two unfinished glasses of wine and some couch pillows knocked to the floor. They're both under the blanket; Villanelle must have covered her. The aforementioned blonde woman is resting, curled up next to her, looking so blissfully quiet and at peace. Head on Eve's shoulder and arm thrown over her waist casually.

Eve gently tries to extract herself from there, not wanting to wake her sleeping companion up. She manages this somehow, Villanelle slumping over and staying there while Eve goes to make some breakfast.

"I want to continue watching movies with you. I liked it," Villanelle says when she wakes up, finding breakfast for lunch already ready for her. They're playing a new game now. Playing house. Eve can feel the walls closing in on her. How can she and Villanelle be so alike and yet not want the same thing? The night on the couch shows Eve falling for the same trap. Except this time she's a bit smarter about it.

"Don't be ridiculous," Eve chastises. "You know this won't last. We're on borrowed time. I've already stayed here for too long. They'll find your co-workers body, set out searches for her."

"Hey, they won't," Villanelle strides over, cups Eve's cheek. Her eyes are wide. Impressionable with an optimistic future for the both of them that she sees and Eve cannot. "I've made sure of it."

"Just like you made sure that she would help us?" she can't help the sarcastic cut. Villanelle doesn't wince.

"She would have, if I had told her about my love for you-"

"-but she didn't even wait to listen to that before wanting to report us," Eve doesn't blink in their staring contest, not shaken by Villanelle's casual statement of being in love with Eve. Eve doesn't want to delve deeper into that because she likes being liked and is afraid to lose it though she knows she must. It would be for the best interest of both of them. "Maybe you don't feel it, but I do. The noose is tightening. I can't stay here."

"They don't know about it," Villanelle cuts in, a maniac edge to her words, to the contours of her face. "And they don't have to. It can be our little secret."

Eve doesn't know what Villanelle is exactly referring to, but she's not going to pause to ask for a clarification because either case doesn't make anything any better.

Eve snorts. "Sure." She corners Villanelle. "And then what? We skip off to Alaska for a happy ending?" She shakes her head, disgruntled. "You know that won't happen. You know they won't leave us alone."

"I can make them leave us alone."

Eve doesn't respond, just looks on at Villanelle with something akin to disbelief in her eyes.

"Eve-"

"No," Eve shakes her head vehemently and stalks to her room. She doesn't want to deal with reality anymore.


	7. What do you Want?

"You know, it's not fair," Eve contemplated as her lips sucked on a small silver spoon with which she had ingested a piece of sweet cake that Villanelle had bought for her and brought her here on this dreary Friday night.

It was domestic almost. How Villanelle would go to work for a week, doing who knows what, looking for who knows who, and dealing with them who knows how, before coming home on Friday to Sunday, sometimes bearing gifts.

It irritated Eve with the thoughtfulness. With falling into a predictable pattern.

Villanelle just watches Eve eat. She enjoys watching Eve do things. It must be the psycho in her, because surely, what normal person enjoyed watching the person they love be happy or do something as mundane as eating a good treat.

Eve will never understand.

"What's not fair? The fact you didn't offer me a bite, despite me bringing this over to you?" Villanelle's eyes are bright with this cat and mouse game that rests on their tongues. Which one is the cat? Which one the mouse?

Eve thinks she's the poison that the mouse ingests which kills it. The cat then eats the poisoned mouse and then dies too.

"No. I wasn't going to offer. You clearly already had some."

"How astute." Villanelle is pleased by this. She sprinkles opportunities for Eve to banter with her. For them to drive each other to the edge with witty remarks and comebacks. Eve would have liked it, if it were a bit more constructive.

She wonders if Villanelle thinks this is how couples behave. Banter, romantic gestures, and food to get to the heart.

"I was referring to you knowing so much about me, and I not knowing anything about you."

"I'm an open book. You just have to read me," Villanelle says, takes a chair, and straddles it. It lets her legs spread open and in the uncharacteristic dress she's wearing, Eve can see up. Which must be Villanelle's intentions.

"Eve, you _naughty_ girl," she purrs, clearly pleased by this and gets up, to sit on the armchair with her legs closed. Eve just sighs to herself. She hadn't meant to look. And get caught.

"You're a book in a language I haven't learned yet."

"Oh, thank you," Villanelle says, touched by this insult. "But, really. I'm a simple girl." She leans over and steals the empty plate and silver spoon from Eve. She sets the plate down and puts the spoon in her mouth, working off the last bit of cream there that Eve hadn't gotten. She draws the motion out, letting the spoon leave her lips.

Eve finds herself shifting her legs so she can sit more comfortably.

"I want a cool job. Nice flat. Happy life. Someone to love," Villanelle states simply, setting the spoon down. Eve picks up her mug so she can have something to do with her hands.

"That doesn't tell me anything. Tell me how you learned about me," Eve is blunt. To the point. She's patient when it comes to many things and impatient when it comes to many more. Extracting information out of someone she never did have the tact or patience for. Not even when she had to torture others for vital information that had saved many lives.

She had seen her strength as being invisible. And even then, it seemed she had floated onto someone's radar. Villanelle's.

Villanelle looks at Eve in her cat like manner.

Maybe she's the cat in the game. Her eyes, her character. Her mannerisms lent to that. And maybe she could bloom into that cat, apex predator. For now, she was still missing something.

"You fascinate me," Villanelle said. "Everything felt...dead to me. My job gave me no joy. People gave me no joy. And then I was tasked with finding you. With putting an end to you. And each tidbit of information I found about you only made me more interested in you. Your past, your present, and your future. I wanted to know everything about you. And then, to take the cherry on the cake, I found out that you and I had crossed paths. You had saved me. I couldn't...I couldn't just do as they asked me to. I wanted to, but I couldn't." She looks torn as she says this, her emotions bleeding out onto her mask.

"You don't sound like a stalker at all," Eve comments dryly.

"You saved me from that shit hovel. Came in, guns blazing with justice. Wiped out every piece of scum in that establishment and gave me a future that didn't involve a needle in my arm and a diseased dick in me," Villanelle said with effect, face contorting in anger.

"Ah," Eve makes a noise of enlightenment. Honestly, it all had started to blend in.

But she remembers the brothel. The red light from the district. The small faces. Young. Women. Too thin. Shallow and scared.

They were almost secondary, an after thought, to the men there. Guarding them with their nasty intentions and their guns. Eve had taken them down, one by one. Their blood and brains had been on her mind. The smell of metal. Powder. Mixing with sex and sweat.

She didn't know what happened to the girls afterwards. It hadn't been her concern. But if Oksana was there...it could be possible she had been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade after she'd run from home. And Eve busting down the joint had saved the girl's life among many others.

Eve hadn't had that intention when she came there. All she had wanted to do was make cash.

"I'm glad you grew up to be such an upstanding citizen." Eve states with cutting sarcasm so she doesn't feel as much.

"Don't be a dick about it. It meant a lot to me."

Eve forgets that sometimes people can feel things. Even people like Villanelle. She jerks her head, an apology on her lips but Villanelle can't remain serious. "Were you about to apologize to me?" Guess this wasn't one of those times she'd hurt Villanelle. But the day would come, surely. As steadily as time marched on.

"I forgot you don't have all the screws in your head. How did you even get a job like this?" Eve asks, slightly judgmental. And not for the last time pondering this facet.

Villanelle shrugs. "You do the same."

"Yes. But I'm not the same as you, so I don't need to pretend all the time."

"I like acting," another shrug. "And I love accents. Would you like to hear some?"

"Not really. I don't like actors actually. They piss me off."

"Why not?" Villanelle asks, interested.

Eve thumbs the rim of her mug. Her tea is cold now. "Because after they play their role they can just go back to being normal. Not all of us can do it, and those that can piss me off."

"Jealous," Oksana says and she's not Oksana anymore but someone who sounds like a Becky. "Like, it's okay to be jealous of this talent, sweetie," she runs hands down her sides, accenting her hips. She does have a nice torso. Eve wonders what it would feel like under the press of her heavy hand.

"No. I can do the same."

"Except you don't. You float under the radar. You go invisible. You really don't like to make a mark, do you?"

"Discretion is vital. If you take a shit you don't go around flaunting it."

"Oh, I don't know. Some parents laminate their first child's shit."

Eve's brows furrow. "Why do you know this?"

"Why don't you know this?" Villanelle shoots back in equal measure.

Eve takes a sip of her tea. It needs sugar. She'll take her coffee black but not her tea. "Look, you still have a chance to have...a life doing whatever. You're young, smart, attractive, and feasibly not too nuts. Don't throw your future away on me. I'm old news. I might even just...retire and find a life out in the middle of a desert somewhere."

Villanelle looks horrified by this. "And put all your talent to waste?" She nearly screams this but reels back, as if worried what will happen if she lets the full extent of her feelings out.

Eve is not shaken. "What do you propose. Working with me?"

When Villanelle doesn't answer right away, Eve lets out a groan. "Oh my god, you're serious."

"I haven't decided yet," Villanelle states grimly. "But I'm bored with my job and chasing you might lead me to a life I want. I want adventure, I want action. I don't want boring."

"You aren't the same as me."

"Yes, I am. And yes, you are. We are both bored with this world. We both cannot abide to act normally in it, and why should we, when it's just a giant playground to us?" Villanelle speaks with a righteousness. An excitement of ideology that is infectious. Eve has to restrain herself from falling down that old trap again.

"Except I know when to stop. Do you?"

That sobers Villanelle up. She slouches into her armchair, stroking her chin as she thinks. "You could teach me."

"I think maybe your organization should be chasing you and not me. I really don't know how you got this job."

"I study people. It's only natural to know what's in their minds. I knew how to answer the questions they needed on my psych evaluation. But you..." she wagged her finger at Eve like she was a sneaky bint getting over a good one on her. "I can't read you all the time. Because we're alike."

"We're not. Not all crazy is the same crazy," Eve states calmly and sagely. "I would know. I studied this extensively before I realized I was one of the things I was studying and couldn't bare to continue in that field of work." Her college years had been very jarring. Her discovery might have just given her the push to where life lead her. Struggling to be normal. To achieve the mundane.

At this Villanelle gets up and throws the mug from Eve's hand against the wall. Eve doesn't even startle as it smashes hard. "Fuck you, Eve. You don't need to make it this hard!"

Eve is remorseless. "I'm trying to save you, you idiot."

"I don't want it. I don't," Villanelle stomps her foot, like a child. "I made my choices. I know who I am. What I am. Everyday I hide you from them is another day condemning my future."

Eve gets up, lips curled up in choler. Shaking her head in disbelief. "I didn't ask you to. I don't know what more you expect from me."

In an impossibly soft voice, Villanelle says, "you. Just you."

They stare at each other, breathing hard, not moving. Not looking away.

And then Eve slowly turns and goes to the bedroom. Villanelle follows after her.


	8. Delicious

"Close the door," Eve instructs as Villanelle steps in like a cat assessing an unknown situation, something like uncertainty on her face. Never did Eve think she would see it. She likes it. Likes catching the woman off guard. She approaches her, backing Villanelle against the door. The woman's breathing picks up as her eyes trace Eve's lips.

Before Villanelle can say anything, though Eve doubts she will, cat got her tongue in this moment gone she is, Eve kisses her. It's not like the couch kiss. A brief meeting of lips, serving the purpose to shut the blonde up. This kiss has a different intention. It presses harder. Strikes closer to the heart.

Villanelle's arms tentatively sneak up like slithering snakes and wrap around Eve's torso, thumbs digging into her hip bones, digits splayed possessively. Eve's arms don't do anything but hang there. "Is this what you want?" she asks unkindly.

"I already told you," Villanelle says in a deeper voice. Husky. It makes Eve tingle in a way she's trying to ignore. "I want you."

"You want this too?" Eve asks and digging one hand into the Russian's hair, pulls hard, exposing her neck and sinking her teeth in. It hurts. It's meant to hurt. Villanelle only whimpers and Eve pulls away, eyeing the red ring her teeth left.

It's arousing to see pain on others. Especially when they like it. Or can take the offering up, with two greedy hands. She doesn't lave the wound with her tongue. Because she knows Villanelle will want it like this, proudly displaying it. Will Villanelle display everything she gives her proudly?

Then she kisses Villanelle again, a rough kiss. Bruising now.

Villanelle's hands dig harder, pull closer as she is forced into the door which cannot be comfortable. But Eve doesn't care. She wants Villanelle to remember this pain. To know it each time she looks at her. If words will not get to her, maybe if Eve shows her how bad of an idea it is then she'll come to her senses.

"This doesn't mean I like you," Eve says.

"You kiss like you don't mean it," Villanelle makes out between groans and the unison of their lips.

Eve pulls Villanelle off the door, allowing herself to fall onto the bed top. Villanelle eagerly follows.

"I'm not gay," Eve said as Villanelle hovered over her.

The Russian snorts. "You hate men." She ducks her head to nip at Eve's lips. Eve turns her head away.

"No I don't."

"Yes, you do. And you hate Niko the most."

Eve frowns. They stare at each other. "What?"

"You hate him for being so normal. For trapping you in normalcy. Do you think I wouldn't know?" Villanelle asks, sitting back on her haunches, running her hands down Eve's sides. She can feel the ribs there. The way they expand and constrict nervously.

"I studied you. I know how your patterns work because I would have done the same," she says softly, letting her hands run down to Eve's trousers. They hesitate on the button. Eve is still under her.

"You've been married for what, five years? It didn't start until the second year, when you really started to feel it all sink in. Started to feel trapped. Anything he did- you played the happy house wife and took out your frustrations on someone else. But not just anyone." Her hand deftly snaked back and found the knife Eve had there. She pulled it free. It was small but sharp. She dragged the tip over Eve's abdomen. Watching the way the fabric got caught on the knife's edge, being pulled along.

Eve had had that on her, just in case. Never knew when she might need it. She hadn't noticed Villanelle had noticed.

"On men who looked like him," Villanelle hissed this sibilantly, a smug smirk on her face.

Eve doesn't say anything for a while, before she snorts, amused. "And yet, you still want to fuck me."

"I thought the fact I was obsessing over you for three years in trying to track you down would be red flag enough." Villanelle bites her bottom lip. "So why would this little detail change the fact?"

"How do you know I won't be bored with you?"

"I'm a psychopath. You never know what I'm thinking. Or what I might do. Like I could stab you. Right here," she says in a saccharine voice, circling very lightly the spot over Eve's stomach. Almost like a loving caress.

"Put away the knife. I'm not into knife play," Eve says blandly, flatly.

Villanelle pouts but lays it down on the bed. On the white covers. "But I won't hurt you."

"Yes. But I will." Quick as a flash Eve grabs the knife and stabs Villanelle right in the same spot the woman had been teasing before, but just a bit to the side, to avoid vital organs.

Villanelle gasps so loud, body arching in, caving over the wound. She's frozen like that for a good couple of seconds. Eve holds the knife in with one hand and then shoves Villanelle off of her and to the side, the woman bouncing and jostling the knife with a scream. She holds the area around the stab wound as it rapidly turns an angry red. Her legs twist and her mouth is gaping open like she's torn between breathing and screaming. All that comes out is, "I really liked you." Pained and painted with blood.

But Eve is in full flight mode. She rushes out the room, and then out the house, grabbing only a coat and the bag she had prepared before. Villanelle thuds as she falls to the floor, trying to reach her phone but Eve doesn't see this.

Eve is in the car Villanelle uses to drive her, hidden in the brush, but not entirely. And she is pulling out, trying to drive away as fast as she can. She won't have a lot of time before they try to find her again. But she knows, to stay in that house, to stay with Villanelle is to commit to a future neither are ready for.

And so, without looking back, she drives away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Aye, don't send pitch fork mobs after me for this. Had to do it to pay homage to the season one ending of the show.
> 
> On that note, the second arc of this story will be starting, you can all expect more twists :)


	9. Self Destructive vs Self Destructive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Two

Oksana hated the sounds of beeping monitors. It tempted her to rip the tubes from out her arms and go over and smash them. But she couldn't. Otherwise she'd never recover and get out of here, even if the need to be out hunting for Eve itched at her skin worse than the hospital issued gown.

“What the hell happened?” Carolyn looks down at her, stern face even sterner, and the trench coat around her shoulders making her appear a touch mysterious. Like some great archaic force sent to punish Villanelle. Villanelle didn't care much for punishments. Why did everything have to have repercussions? It was so annoying.

She scratches at the bandages covering her wound.

“She stabbed me,” Villanelle says in an insouciance manner. “And then she ran away.”

“Why didn't you call for back up when you spotted her?”

“I thought I could handle her.”

“Clearly, you thought wrong,” is the sharp remark. Villanelle presses down on the wound until it begins to hurt.

“I still want to go after her,” Villanelle says.

“No. You're off the case.”

Villanelle's fingers press harder. Tears sting in her eyes. “You can't take me off the case-”

“I've talked to your teammates,” Carolyn states briskly. Damn woman won't even let Villanelle get a word in edge wise. “They've confirmed with me it would be best if you stayed off the case.”

“I'll recover quickly. It doesn't even hurt anymore-” it does hurt. The wound hurts a lot especially when touching it.

“It's not that,” Carolyn arches a brow. Villanelle can feel that familiar slow burning rage building inside her. She swallows it down with a tight gulp. “They've noticed....you've become erratic. Obsessed on catching her. You're not stable. It's best you stay put while this case is resolved.”

She hadn't been stable for the longest time but it was now they saw this? Idiots.

“Just let me catch her,” Villanelle sits up, grunts in pain. “I promise I'll be fine.” She needs to find Eve. Can't leave her alone, not after the way they left things. She wanted to have a word with her. A very sharp word. A knife- that was the word. She wanted to inject it right into Eve with the same sort of hope crushing force she had pushed it with into Villanelle. “If I found her once, I can find her again.”

“No.” Carolyn turns and leaves.

Villanelle's rage bursts out of her. “You won't be able to find her. You need me to find her! You need _me_!” she screams at the woman's back, the force of it, splitting her wound open. She looks down at the red staining her white bandages and plops down on the bed again.

She is definitely going to find Eve again.

* * *

“They're not very happy with you,” the big man with the thick accent announces as Eve comes out of the hotel bathroom. She nearly screams and drops her towel as she reaches for her gun which she left oh so conveniently on the bed. When she sees it's just him she lowers it. “Don't do that to me.”

“I won't be the only one scaring you. MI-6 is after you.”

“I know that,” she says brusquely as she grabs her fresh clothing, shoving it under her arm because in one hand she's holding a gun and in the other she's holding up her towel. “Do you mind?” she motions with the gun for him to turn around.

He does so, and this allows her to get dressed.

“What are you going to do about it? You can't take work if they're tracking you down. The 12 are not happy.”

“The 12 can kiss my ass.”

“I don't think they would take to that kindly.”

“Then I'm done. Done with them.” She zips up her pants with finality. He turns around at this, a stern and unhappy look on his face. “You'll find your life done if you do that.”

“I'm tired. Tired of all this,” she explains, gesturing wildly. She tries to pull her hair back but it's wet and unruly.

“Don't bullshit me,” he spits, making Eve furrow her brows at his tone. Since when does he care for her? He's only her handler. “And what else are you going to do? Bake cakes for a living? You know you can't do anything else.”

She approaches him, sucking in a deep breath. “You don't understand. I fucked up.”

“Is this what happened in those weeks you were missing and I couldn't get in touch with you?” he asks, frowning deeply at her. “You should have said something. The 12 were going crazy over one of their own missing. They almost took off my hand.” He raised it to show it was perfectly whole.

“You only need one hand to masturbate. You'll be fine.”

“Don't do that to me again,” he said sternly, wagging a finger in her face.

“I was being attacked by assassins and then this woman, this MI-6 agent comes out of nowhere and she whisks me away to a safe house.”

“You just let her?” he asks, perplexed. “And she didn't hurt you? Are you sure she was working for British Intelligence?”

“She was. I'm sure of it. She brought someone from her branch over and then killed them when they didn't help us. But...” Eve played with the ring on her hand. “She was trying to help me. She was trying to run away with me.”

Konstantin's brows go up. “Why? Why the hell would she want to do that if she knows you're an assassin whose killed many?”

“She's in love with me. And she wants me to help her become like me,” Eve said; it all sounded so odd coming from her mouth, being aired out like this. It sounded like a story. Made up on whim.

“And?” he asked, sensing there was more to this.

“And I stabbed her. I think I killed her.” She looks away, guilty.

Konstantin spreads his hands. “So, isn't that a good thing? The problem took care of itself. Don't tell me you feel bad about it?”

“What if she's not dead? She knows how to find me. She found me last time. Except this time she knows more about me, she could send the whole of MI-6 on me!” she stressed., pad of her thumb going to her mouth, gnawing it nervously.

“If that happens, then the 12 will either kill her and all them. Or they will kill you.” He stated this matter of factly.

Eve shook her head and began to pace by the window. “No. They can't....they can't kill her!”

“You sure feel strongly about someone you killed. Or thought you killed.”

“She did save my life,” Eve points out, suddenly worried for Villanelle. Is the woman alive? Is she okay? She needs to find out a way to contact her. To apologize-

Konstantin tosses something onto the bed. A manila file. It stops Eve's pacing. She picks it up, looks through it with frantic eyes and slightly shaking hands. It's a hospital form. “Is this my next target?”

“It's information about Oksana. The agent who you stabbed. She screamed her head off in the ambulance on your name. “Eve Polastri you piece of shit,” he went into a higher register, mocking. When she gave him an odd look, he defended himself. “Her words not mine. So, it's safe to assume she's alive and well.”

Eve feels herself sag with relief. Flips through more files, steps closer to the light. This way she can see the photos of Villanelle clearly. She looks off guard in all of them. But so....so her. And not stabbed.

“I think you should get her flowers. Women like them,” Konstantin turns to leave. Hand on the knob, he pauses to say one last thing. “And they go quite well with funerals.”

He slams the door and Eve's heart slams shut.

* * *

When Villanelle wakes up she finds a bouquet of flowers next to her bed. The intern who brought it in is still in the room but he's about to leave. “Who bought this for me?” Villanelle asks.

He shrugs. “I don't know. It was left at the desk from a delivery service.”

“What was the address it was sent from?”

“I don't know.” Of course he doesn't know. Stupid idiot head.

And then he leaves it at that. She'll look into that as soon as she can. It could be her first real clue.

Villanelle takes the flowers and smells them. Purple Hyacinth. An apology. But also a statement that Villanelle has been forgiven. How cocky to assume she wants to be forgiven for not doing anything wrong- though she does want to do wrong and Eve probably knows Villanelle is the type to get even. Oksana sucks her teeth. She knows only one person who would be like this.

She shakes the flowers and a note flutters out. In elegant script, it says, “Sorry baby, xoxo.”

Villanelle lies flat on her bed, holding the card to her beating heart as she looks up. Some petals scatter around her and she sighs deeply, letting her eyes close.

She needs to find a way out of here, but she knows she's being monitored by her organization. She'll have to be smart about this. Because what she said is true. They won't be able to find Eve without her.

Villanelle's lips quirk up. Poison wasn't the only thing Villanelle gave her.

* * *

She waited until five days passed. Waited, but barely. Each second passing that she wasted on not chasing Eve was like a knife dragged across her skin. Pricking her, hurting her. So she waited five days because she could wait no more. And she planned while she was here, locked up in her own room, a cycle of doctors coming in and making sure she was okay.

There was no security detail because they probably didn't think Eve was much of a danger to none targets. But they didn't know what Villanelle knew. That Eve would hurt normal people. The knife wound Villanelle bore was truth enough to it. Which meant Eve was right. They did underestimate her.

If Villanelle told her agency that Eve was behind the string of mysterious murders, then they would change their operations. But Villanelle didn't want anyone to know. She wanted to be the only one to know this, because it meant she knew something about Eve no one else did. That she shared an intimate detail with her.

No one knew Eve like she did.

A doctor came in to check up on Villanelle. This was her chance to get some information.

“What antibiotics am I on?” Villanelle asked the doctor who flipped his clipboard as he came into the room.

“Why do you ask?” he stated.

“I think it's making me constipated. Because I can't seem to give a shit,” she says frankly but without actually being frank.

“Penicillin,” he says, making an expression like he did not need to know that. She thinks he's a big baby for that.

“Thank you.” She settles back into her covers. She's one step closer to escaping.

* * *

While Villanelle rests in her confine of a hospital, Eve sits on a dilapidated doorstep, gazing into nothing as she absent mindedly strokes a cat's head. Poor thing had come up to her, hungry. So she had fed it, and now it was purring for her, malleable and wanting more affection.

She feels guilty as she gives it soft touches. Why can't she be like this with anyone who loves her? Why does her hand turn into a fist?

Maybe one day she'll know.

Today certainly won't be the day


	10. Is This a Joke to You?

Sneaking out is a joke, Oksana thinks as she strides quickly away from the hospital, clad in someone else's clothes. Medicine she pilfered burns a hole in her pockets. She's got everything that she needs and won't need to worry about her health while she chases ghosts.

She gets no trouble all the way to her house, a smirk on her lips as she steps inside. Naturally, she does a quick search to make sure no one is watching her house, or that no one bugged it. It seems untouched, but she doesn't waste any time changing into something more befitting her. She throws the ugly clothes she stole away into the trash and puts on a fitted jacket and pants. She wants to look nice when she finds Eve. And she knows it will be an easy task.

She opens the app on her phone. A tracking app. Immediately a red dot appears, hovering over Dublin. She taps to zoom in until city streets come up.

Oksana smiles. She's got Eve.

Hastily, she packs some bags and cash and hurries over to the train station, mindful of making sure Carolyn didn't set up anyone to follow her.

* * *

Eve's got a cigarette tucked between her fingers. Untouched, unlike her hair. She's run her hands through it so many times that it's a mess. Nothing new, to be honest. She sighs and glares gloomily at the book she was attempting to read.

Crime and Punishment sits resting open on the hundredth page but Eve has no idea of what she's read because her mind had wandered the entire time. Wandered to that scene in the safe house. Over and over again she thinks on it. It's not the first time she's hurt someone. But it's the first time she's cared that she has. And not just because societal norms tell her to do so. She cares of her own free volition and somehow it makes it harder for her to swallow the incident down.

She flicks her tongue over her teeth, tasting the remnants of the beer she drank as her fingers twiddled with the cigarette. She doesn't smoke. Never has. It's a nasty habit and she hates the clinging scent of smoke, marring someone for every sinful inhalation that tarnishes lungs black. But it's comforting to have the cigarette there. A method of destruction that many choose to indulge in.

She can't go out and use her normal method of coping with her mixed emotions, so playing with the cigarette and then crushing it until the tobacco stains her fingers and oozes out like insides, makes her feel a bit better. She's gone through half a pack this way.

Discarded pieces lay on the table, dirtying it. She'll clean them up later. Or maybe she won't.

She sighs once more, runs a hand through her hair, the one not stained, and attempts to turn back to the book. But the print blurs in front of her eyes and the settling dusk is not helping her. She sighs what feels like the thousandth time and slams the book cover closed. She notices a man approaching her from the side and wonders what he could possible want from her now. She's in a pissy mood because of how she left things and she's most likely to take it out on him.

“Can I get a cig?” he asks, a hint of a Scottish accent on his lips. He leans over her, placing one hand on the table as if about to bully her into giving him one. He smells of drink and old smoke.

She hates this. It's not like Villanelle, when she would get too close. Then, it was alright, because she made the invasion of space a compliment. Like she was blessing you, choosing you to be the one she got close to. Made contact with.

This man only insulted Eve and made her on edge more than she already was.

She levels her stare at him. His face is too close to hers. She winces when she speaks. “No.”

He didn't expect an answer like this, so he gapes there like a fish for a little bit. “But, love, you've got a whole pack and I've noticed you crushing them and not smoking them. Don't waste them.”

“And don't waste my time with begging for something that's not yours.” Her voice is dark, gravelly. A warning to get away.

Again, he gapes. It seems he doesn't understand things easily. “All I wanted was-”

She doesn't let him finish. She produces a thin knife easily from within the confines of her jacket and jabs it right into the hand he's got flat on the table.

The pain too takes a time to register. She gathers up her things quickly in the time it takes it do so, as the first howl leaves his spit flecked lips. He stands there, looking at the knife gaping out as she hurries past him and the sudden attention he's going to get.

She weaves through the city streets, keeping to the shadows before she gets to the hotel room she's staying at. She feels a bit better now, but still, that ball of roiling emotion sits in her stomach heavily. She wants it to go away.

But it won't. Not until she sees Villanelle.

She opens up her files to see the hospital she's been kept at. Tomorrow morning, Eve will go and find her.

Will she kill her?

….Eve doesn't know. She hasn't thought about that part yet. But she does want to see her. To explain perhaps why she did what she did. And from there, she can decide what she will do about Villanelle.

She looks at Villanelle's picture in the file. Those cat like eyes. Delicate facial features. Those brows, so smug in their expression.

No. Eve closes her eyes. She'll go now.

She doesn't bother to pack anything. It'll be a quick visit anyways.

* * *

Villanelle's eyes, hungrily, and with intent focus, stare at the red dot and how ever close she gets to the blipping icon. The train rattles under her, vibrating with momentum, one that is infectious as she is nearly bursting out of her skin.

She's going to see Eve. She's going to see Eve.

She bites her lip as the thought nearly overwhelms her.

She's going to find her again. And she's going to....well...

Suddenly her happiness comes crashing down as she realizes she doesn't know what she's going to do when she comes across Eve. Will she hurt her? Scream at her? Or run to her with open arms and allow herself to be stabbed again? She's angry with herself for not thinking of this beforehand. She should do better_. Be_ better. But Eve is making her weak. Is clouding her mind, her muddled mind, even more so than normal.

But Villanelle was so close to her. Had her right there. Under her. On her. She had tasted Eve's lips. Had tasted what life could be like with her, so was it no wonder that Villanelle was running back to the life she wanted that no one else but Eve could give her?

A life of excitement. Of doing new things. But of also having stability. Of having someone to be with. Someone who cared and understood. And Eve had taken almost all that away by driving a knife into Villanelle's side like she was a cake meant to be dissected and shared for celebration.

Villanelle should be angry. But she can't truly be. Because Eve inspires so many better feelings in her. The flutter of butterflies in her stomach. The way her lips would uncontrollably tug up in smile when she saw her. The way Villanelle suddenly saw the world as a better place. As an amazing place.

If anything, Villanelle had a right to feel angry that Eve had tried to invalidate her feelings, permanently. Why had Eve stabbed her? Was she afraid of Villanelle? No, that couldn't be it. Eve had never given indication of that. A lack of trust, perhaps but only because of their conflicting positions.

Eve could have been scared. Scared of her own feelings....

Villanelle settled down into her seat with a grumpy sort of attitude now. She doesn't bother to refresh the app for the rest of the ride to Dublin. She gets out of the train, face buried in her phone. The red dot is a mere ten block walk from the station. Eve always did know how to hide in places you would think an assassin wouldn't hide, like someplace close to the station where someone looking for an assassin might overlook because they would think the assassin would think it too obvious and go for some dark hovel.

Villanelle grins into the phone, passing many people on the way out of the station. She passes a woman wearing a baseball cap lowered over her face, thick hair hidden under it, and face buried in a Crime and Punishment book.

Her steps quicken as they lead her out into the early night, and she can feel that same excitement bursting in her chest with each burst of air puffing from her lips. She barely feels the cold, all too intent on getting to the place with the dot. But as she gets closer, she notices something. The dot is moving. She pauses in the middle of the road, thinking perhaps her eyes are betraying her. But no. They are not weary or seeing things. The dot is moving and she looks around, thinking that Eve must be on the streets.

But the streets are mainly empty. And she sees no woman with amazing hair walking down them. Is Eve in disguise then? Villanelle frowns, frustrated, and decides to follow the direction of the dot, keeping one eye on her phone and another on the streets.

Eve may have been called the Ghost, but in this case, she _was_ a ghost. Villanelle didn't see her anywhere even as the tracker in the ring she had given Eve indicated she was on the move on these streets. All Villanelle had for company was an old woman wrapped in thick coats and a lanky looking black cat, trailing like a shadow of bad luck.

The dot stops moving in front of a house with a red door. It's small and looks like it won't be a challenge for Villanelle to get into. She hides her phone and circles around the front and back, finding a little window open in the back with which she can get in. She's just slim enough to slither through the pane. She's a bit embarrassed that she sounds so out of breath doing so. It seems she might be a bit more injured than she would have liked.

When she drops down silently, or as silently as the coursing pain that has her gasping as she grasps her side allows her to, she sneaks through the darkened house. The occupants must be sleeping. Why would Eve be here? Unless this is her safe house?

Villanelle creeps the corners, heading towards an on kitchen light which is where Eve must be. She rounds about slowly, hoping to catch her off guard, but the only person surprised is herself. She finds no one there, but a black cat shitting in it's litter box. It doesn't even startle at sight of her, continuing to take a shit without breaking eye contact with her.

Frustrated and confused, she reaches for her phone, tapping the screen to zoom in. But no. It says that Eve is here. Except she's not. Villanelle looks around widely, as if maybe Eve is sitting on top the cabinets, or hiding behind the fridge, but she's not. Villanelle would be screaming out Eve's name if she didn't think it would be a stupid idea.

The cat finishes it's business and goes to lick it's paw on top of the counter, jumping up there smoothly and quietly.

Villanelle stares at the mess it's made when a slow dawning falls on her, like a heavy suffocating curtain. On second inspection she's sure that's the cat she saw on the streets as she followed the red dot. And now, the red dot isn't moving.

She stares at the shit.

The chip inside the ring had been small. Etched into the side. A normal person wouldn't have noticed it. Wouldn't have even bothered to suspect or look for such a thing. But Eve wasn't like normal people.

Such a thing, when taken out, would have been small enough for say, something like a cat, to eat it.

With an inhuman scream she turns and hurls her phone at the wall where it breaks into three pieces. The cat merely watches her judgmentally. “Don't you dare be smug, you asshole!” she tells it, before hurrying out of there.

* * *

Hospital security always was and always will be a joke. It's a shame how easily Eve can get in and out of it, without anyone being the wiser. Especially now, at this late hour, when everyone is drained and needs coffee to boost their senses. Eve doesn't need such an enhancer. She's ruining on adrenaline and guilt and so many other emotions she needs to wrap herself in the outside world sensations or else she'll grab the nearest scalpel and gouge someone's eye out.

Tracking down Oksana's room is easy. But naturally, anything after that wouldn't be as easy. Eve stares with befuddlement and disappointment garbed as a janitor, into the empty room where Oksana should be. Tentatively, for she is aware this could be a trap, she steps foot inside, examining the space with alert and sharp eyes.

It looks freshly abandoned. Villlanelle hasn't been gone long. But where has she gone back to? Her agency? Doubtful they would take her back after what she did. But if Oksana was anything, she was an actress. No doubt she had created a cover. Did the cover work? Or did it not work, and thus she had escaped both hospital and her agency's judgment?

Eve's fingers linger on the wrinkled pillow. Oksana had lain here. Had healed on this bed. And not so long ago, Oksana had lain side by side with Eve on a bed, talking into the dark. Delving into each others souls. She wonders, does Villanelle hate her now? Does she no longer love her?

That idea stings. Almost like as Eve had gotten stabbed. But in the heart. She holds a hand over it to still the wild beating. No, this is better. Better if Villanelle doesn't like her. Doesn't care for her.

Eve doesn't want to drag anymore people down with her.

It's better this way.

….it's _better_ this way.

She leaves reluctantly, taking her mop with her. She has a woman to finish off properly. She shouldn't keep the 12 waiting any longer.


	11. God I'm Tired

“You haven't killed her yet,” Konstantin starts when a tired Eve walks into her hotel room after she gets back from the hospital Villanelle had been in. She is too tired, emotionally raw, and hungry, to want to see his face or have a cruel reminder of what needs to be done.

“Well, I can't kill a woman whose not there anymore,” she says sharply, turning rudely to her kitchenette to make herself a sandwich.

“They moved her,” he suggests, not surprised.

“More like she moved herself,” she responds with, shoving half a slice of bread into her mouth because she's too impatient to wait until the sandwich is finished. Also, too hungry.

“That is what happens when you wait too long,” he admonishes but not really. He knows these things happen. And he knows how fickle assassins can be. Almost like children, really. But children who know how to kill.

“I thought she was going to be there for a good month, recovering,” she responds, still sharply. Sandwich constructed she sits down on the couch Konstantin is hogging with his burly figure. “Want a slice?” she offers, because she may be an asshole assassin but that doesn't mean she can't have manners.

“I just ate. Thank you. But to get to the point, you need to finish her off. The 12 are willing to overlook the risk you could have put them in if she had gotten any info out of you.”

Eve snorts. “She didn't want info on the 12. She wanted info on me. On my interests and hobbies. She's no threat to the 12.”

“They will not see it that way about your girlfriend,” he insists, wagging his finger at her. “She has stuck her nose where it does not belong.”

“I'm sure _she_ doesn't see it that way.” Eve mumbles this around a slice. The fact he called Villanelle her girlfriend goes right over her head.

“What do you think she will do next?”

“How would I know? It's not like I have her number and can text her to ask her what's on her agenda.”

“No, but you did spend time with her. Certainly you must know what she wants to do next.”

“Maybe she'll look for me. Maybe she won't. Stabbing her could have made her more determined to find me. Or it could have made her want to stay away.”

“Decide which one it is, and then set up a plan to lure her in,” he states, rising to his feet. “Or else things might get messy for everyone involved.”

“Weren't they that way to begin?” she asks rhetorically.

He arches his brows at her and then walks away, closing the door softly.

She lets her head hit the back of the couch as she looks up at the ceiling. “God, I'm so tired,” she announced. Maybe it's best if she ends things. But no, she doesn't have the guts to do something like that.

And neither does she know where Villanelle is or how to reach her so she can end things for Eve too.

Instead, she's going to cop out and do something stupid so that the 12 can just do it for her.

A twinge of her survival instincts kick in, but she squashes them down, impulsivity taking the reigns. She barely wants to live on a good day, and today, has not been a good day. In fact, it hasn't been a good day in over ten years.

She won't be missing much. And she's sure Villanelle will stop missing her after a short while of mourning, if she already hasn't.

She finishes her meal in sullen silence and prepares her plans.

* * *

Turning herself into the cops had been easier than suspected. All she had to do was go in, confess to all the details of the crimes only someone who had actually done them knew, and then hold out her wrists as they cuffed her and threw her into a holding cell.

She's been stripped of her clothes, given a standard jumper, and sat in her cell, awaiting her verdict. It was a good thing that she was locked in, otherwise she'd back out of this. Find another impulse in her to keep going. Does she regret turning herself in?

She does. As soon as the idea formed in her head she knew she was going to regret it, but she was beyond caring at that time. Now she does care and she sits fearful in her cell. Fearful and exhausted and vacillating between perhaps running away or staying put and letting the 12 get her. Konstantin doesn't show up. He's probably called her an idiot and much worse things in his language and decided it wouldn't be worth trying to rescue her.

She doesn't begrudge him that. She would do the same if she was in his position.

Surprisingly after two days time, it's Villanelle who shows up first to Eve's cage. Not the 12's assassins. Or MI6 agents. And the blonde Russian looks pissed, confused, and hurt. How did she even find Eve? Oh, wait it hadn't been hard, had it, with Eve's face plastered all over the news as the suspected killer.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she hisses, somehow having snuck in after hours wearing a ridiculous pink dress that looks good on her.

“Sitting in a cell,” Eve says point blank, blinking as she stares as Villanelle from her seat on her bunk. She doesn't dare to get closer. Maybe Villanelle will end her.

A refreshing thought.

“You turned yourself in? You gave yourself up after I said it would be a secret? Did you not trust my word?” Villanelle delivers these accusations like slings and arrows.

Eve chuckles. “That's not why. God, the whole world doesn't revolve around you. I made this decision for myself.”

“And why?” Villanelle demands, low and menacing.

“I'm bored with life, but I don't want to hurt others anymore,” Eve said tiredly.

“Bullshit! Bull_shit_!” Villanelle declares loudly. “You hurt others all the time. Its part of who you are. You hurt your adoptive parents, you hurt Niko, all those other men. You hurt your friends, which is why you don't have any. And you hurt me.” She bunches up her dress, shows the faded mark. Eve winces when she sees it.

“Exactly my point,” Eve growls out, getting annoyed now. “I don't want to hurt others and yet I can't live without it. Can you live with it?”

“Yes,” Villanelle nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yes, I can!”

“You're fantasizing. You've got it all twisted up inside that pretty head of yours.”

Villanelle looks shocked at this. “You called me pretty. This is the first time-” she looks touched.

“Would you focus on the topic!” Eve spits out rudely. “Your feelings for me are part of the reason you need to stop this.”

“But you like me.”

“No, I don't,” Eve shakes her head, cruel. Hurting yet again.

“Yes, you do,” Villanelle states, a touch frantic. “Otherwise you would have killed me. You could have, but you didn't. Not in the safe house. And not now.”

“I'm behind bars right now,” she points out but it doesn't dissuade the young Russian. Eve sighs and sinks down onto her cot. Villanelle gets closer to the bars, caressing them with her long fingers like the metal was Eve's cheeks. Pressing up against them as if she could slink through them and get to Eve.

“We can live in your world together.”

“Why do you want to be an assassin so badly? It's not a life of glamour. You kill and you kill and in the process you kill yourself. You never know if you'll make it back from a mission. Or if the 12 won't just execute you in your sleep.”

“And that's what makes it so exciting-”

“No, you don't want that.” Eve says stubbornly.

“You don't know that.”

“I do,” Eve says sagely, nodding her head and letting a few curls brush past her face. “What did we do when we were in that safe house?”

“I could tell you what we didn't do,” Villanelle wags her brows suggestively.

“You lived a domestic life with me. We watched movies. Cooked dinner. Laughed and got to know each other.” Eve lists impatiently and flatly like it didn't make her a little happy.

“There was that one time we killed someone,” Villanelle points out with levity.

“Either way, it was domestic. You want stability in your life, by controlling things. You controlled me in that house and you're trying to control me now. It's why you like people so much. Because they are stable. Their lives are boring and being around them makes you find that stability you crave. You don't want excitement though you disillusion yourself into thinking you do. So what if life is a playground for us. You don't want to find the chaos in it. You want to find the peace.”

Villanelle's face darkens and she kicks the bars, teeth bared. “Stop fucking lying! Stop it!”

Eve continues.

“You are enamored with this life. With the idea of it. But when reality comes, when it hits you in the face, then you'll realize what a shit storm it is. Like the mess I made of my own life.” Eve shakes her head. She didn't want boredom, but....but she didn't want excitement now either. She didn't know what she wanted just that...”god, I'm tired.” And she lays down on her coat as Oksana screams at her.

“Eve! Eve!” she kicks and rattles the bars, surely drawing attention to them. “Don't you fucking think that! You're wrong!”

“You latched onto me because you thought we were the same. And maybe we are. We're both not normal. But, you're forcing my job, my way of living, and thinking it's the same way you have to live, just because everyone else is normal and you're not and so if I'm not normal than surely you should follow my example and live the way I do.” Eve finished her spiel to the sound of soft tears.

“Why would you say that?” _Why would you shatter my dreams?_ Is unspoken.

“I told you I hurt. You said you could handle it.” She's being cold but good. It needs to be this way. Eve hated Niko, but it was partially because she saw in him how her behavior destroyed him bit by bit. Changed him into a darker version of himself. And so, in a way she hated herself. She's always known this. She just elected to hurt others because she didn't want to hurt herself.

She hates this gut wrenching feeling inside her but, she lets it sit there. She deserves it. She finally deserves to feel some of it. Maybe it's not too late to make up for the sins she's committed. She closes her eyes. She can envision the noose on her neck, going taunt as it chokes the air out of her.

She can almost feel it. Feel the scratchy fabric of the rope.

Except when she opens her eyes, it's another scene. One with a rope around Villanelle's neck. Silent. Oh so silent it had all happened. One second Villanelle was crying, but her sobs had changed. They went from a hurt puppy to gasped and vicious. And it was because she was being choked.

By a man with huge hands. Villanelle is pressed up against the bars and her hands are scrambling around his hands, trying to pry them off. He's not the only man there. There's another watching this exchange, bald and with an ugly wart on his face.

They're wearing matching police uniforms. They must have snuck in here. Must have been sent by the 12 to end her for mucking everything up. For turning herself in. She wouldn't mind such a quick exit except Villanelle is in the way of it. She won't let her be condemned too.

She steps up to the bars, not sure what she can even do about this.

“Wait your turn, Polastri,” says the man not choking Villanelle.

“It's not Polastri anymore,” she states, watching as Villanelle's hand scrabbles at the bars, trying to edge in between her back and bars, but there's no space. Eve sees what she's trying to reach for. A gun tucked into the belt she's got around her dress. It's right in the perfect placement for Eve to get. So she pulls it out and takes out the guy standing around doing nothing. He spots the gun and tries to move, but her bullet catches him right in heart as he tries to dodge it.

He goes down with a squeal like a dying pig and the guy choking Villanelle curses and runs down the hall. Clearly, he hasn't brought a gun despite the cop costume.

They're like a tag team. “I'll get him,” Oksana croaks out, one hand on her throat, other grabbing the gun from Eve's hand as she rushes after him down the halls.

“Be careful!” Eve calls out behind her because she can still worry.

Surely someone like a real cop will have heard this commotion and will come for them. She paces her cell, hands on hips and eyes the bleeding body.

There's another shot that goes off and then Villanelle is coming back. She's rubbing her red neck and looking pissed. She hides the gun, tosses the keys to Eve who catches them easily and opens the door to her cell.

Freedom. What a dangerous taste.

“Dead?”

“Dead,” Villanelle confirms, spitting on the unmoving man paying rent before Eve's temporary home. “We just have to get rid of the bodies.”

“Right,” Eve says, the blonde woman's back to her.

Careless.

She grabs her with split second decision and knocks her head hard into the bar. It makes a satisfying clang sound and Villanelle lets out a choked gasp before she's knocked out, sure to wake up with an awful bump on her head.

Eve makes sure to write “sorry baby, xoxo,” with the blood of the dead man on the floor before she leaves, hearing the steps of heavy police boots in pursuit of an already disappearing ghost.


	12. Screw the Deadline

“What is wrong with you!” Carolyn doesn't scream. She uses an even tone. A tone which screams in disappointment.

“Don't yell at me,” Villanelle pouts like a child. “I am an injured woman.” She has a bump the size of Texas on the back of her head and it throbs with her heartbeat. Another wound Eve has given her. Another memory, another token, of the fond times they spend together.

Villanelle is annoyed and angry. Why must Eve keep running from her? Doesn't she see how good they could be together?

Granted, this time hadn't been too bad. There had been no Villanelle dragging her bleeding body onto the pavement and catching a ride to the nearest city where they took her to the hospital and then transferred her to one within Carolyn's control.

This time, Villanelle had only been framed for two murders. Nothing too concerning.

“She was in jail. She was going to go away and be taken care of for us, and you meddled in the affairs and now she's gone again!”

“I can find her.”

That seems to set Carolyn off even more, given the sharp inhale as her nostrils flare. This ardent belief in that only Villanelle and Eve exist in this cat and mouse chase are driving her up the wall.

“There are dead bodies to account for!” Carolyn ignores Villanelle's earlier request with stoicism, voice still uncomfortably loud.

“They wouldn't be dead if they knew how to kill better,” Villanelle says childishly.

“You disobeyed my orders. You left the hospital. You went after Eve, and what did it result in? Investigations into my bureau and team.”

“Your bureau and team are shit!” Villanelle jumps up as she says this. Filled with that familiar dark anger that makes her so unhinged. “You can't fire me if I quit!” she jerks her jacket angrily off the chair, making an assumption like that before Carolyn can even talk about Villanelle losing her position. “And I am going to find Eve Polastri where you cannot!”

Bold words as she leaves and slams the door.

* * *

“You are very stupid, do you know that?” Konstantin asks because Eve is all over the news. She'd been great at hiding and now she can't even do that. Villanelle has ruined even that for her, despite Eve being the one to ruin it for herself. But, somehow Eve knows she did it for show. Because she had wanted to see if Villanelle still cared for her enough to show up. And she had.

There is a budding warmth inside her chest that cannot be destroyed even by Konstantin's declaration.

Eve doesn't dignify his comment with a response as she sips on her coffee. She's in a new hotel, one in Windsor. Fancy place. Many tourists. She's sure she can manage blending in better here for the time being.

She gazes out at them from under her cap. People watching is always so interesting. Especially when it concerns her life and finding those dangerous to her.

“What were you even trying to do? Now you can no longer work in the UK because they think you killed those men.”

“I did kill those men,” she says without hesitation or regard to his reaction to it. Granted, he doesn't have an outward one. He's worked with too many assassins to be shocked by murder. But he is sensitive to their stupidity. “And not because I was told to. But because I wanted to.”

“You also killed the 12's assassins.”

“That wasn't me,” she half lies. “It was Villanelle.”

“Villanelle was there? And you didn't kill her?” Now there is a higher cadence to his voice. It's at the end of his statements. He folds his big hands across his round midriff and looks at her. She ignores his staring.

“There wasn't time. The 12's assassins got in the way and if I had stayed they would have caught me and I would have had to explain why those people were hunting for me. Namely, a MI6 agent.” She shook her head. “No, if they want me to kill her then they need to stop meddling in my plans.”

“And how were you going to kill her from a cell?”

“She would have come in.”

“You are so certain,” he says. She takes another sip from her mug.

“No. Honestly, I thought I was going to get killed first and then I wouldn't have to do all this.” She looks down at the lines on her palm. Deep and engraved in her skin. How many times had those lines been filled with dried blood? Or been covered in dirt?

This proclamation doesn't phase him. “Then why not kill yourself? Less mess. More private.”

“I can't do it. I'm too much of a coward.” She gives him a contemplating look. “Would you do it if I asked you too?”

“No.” He doesn't even have to think on the answer. She thinks- is that a glimmer of sentimentality? “It's not my job description. Raymond would do it for you if you wanted it.”

She was wrong.

Always wrong about other people.

She clenches the hand she had been examining. The hand that had been laying lax on her knees. “She came first. Not even MI6 was there, despite how badly they wanted me.”

“No doubt they were hoping someone else would clean up your mess for them.”

“And now Villanelle's the one at the crux of it, taking the blame.” Eve hasn't bothered to look at the news. She doesn't want to know how they explained Eve's escaping or the murders or the reason for Villanelle being there.

“For the record, I don't want you to die,” he seems to say without her prompting. So he does care. Somewhat. It makes her feel a bit warmer. “So try not to do stupid things like this again.”

“What? No, 12 killing me or anything like that?”

He shrugs. “They haven't said anything. Not even about relocating you or killing you. Which worries me even more.” He gets up. “Be on your toes. And don't do anything dumb.”

But Eve feels like she's got one brain cell most of these days, and like she shares it with Oksana who doesn't seem to be making any better choices.

They're both rogue agents, having split off from their parent organizations to continue this deadly tango all on their own. When the dance stops, they both will drop dead. From exhaustion.

Konstantin leaves, paying for the bill despite him not buying anything and Eve struggles to decide once more, if she wants to continue this farce of her life or find a way to end it.

It's not that she doesn't value her life. She knows she doesn't entirely want to die, but she doesn't entirely want to live either.

Maybe she'll put a hit out on herself. An assassin killed by an assassin. Poetic.

She'd once read somewhere a hired hitman had fallen in love with the person they were sent to kill. Funny things happened in this world, didn't they.

* * *

After several days of searching after her prison incident, Villanelle has finally found what she wanted, thanks to some illegal hackers help who she had slept with to pay off. And now, with a thick grin on her face, almost a maniacal leer one could say, she approached the man in the bar and set up a discrete meeting for herself with some very important people who could get her what she wanted.

Two more days of waiting- in which they no doubt did a background on her- and now here she was, sitting in a perfectly normal room, on the bed, two men sitting in front of her in tacky chairs. They looked normal. One even had glasses that made him look like a nerd who read Shakespeare.

“Oksana Astankovic. Otherwise codename Villanelle,” the nerd said, flatly, like he was reading lines off a script. Maybe a Shakespearean script.

With that inflection he would never get a role.

“Why did you want to contact us?” he asked, the other man by his side grunting to add to the conversation. Very enlightening.

“I need something specific.”

“Something that MI6 couldn't give you?” nerd asks and his friend grunts again. A bit more loudly.

It was a given they would figure out who she worked for. But she was going to use it to her advantage. She leaned in, all smiles.

“What could be better than an assassin?” She asked before not letting them so much as answer. “An assassin that is in the MI-6.”

“You got fired.”

Villanelle tsks and wags her fingers. Playful. Charming. Always charming to get what she wants. “No. I'm on leave. Doesn't mean I can't get back into stinky bitch's good graces again. To get the information we need.” She claps her hands. “And I do have all the skills you need. Murdering, hacking, running away, stealing, and being discrete but also fashionable.”

She thinks this is the most fun an interview has ever been.

“We have seen your....accomplishments in the field,” nerd admits, pushing up his glasses. “You do have skill. But we need to be able to trust you.”

“MI6 idiots trusted me with their information,” she points out.

“But why stop working for them? What is your motivation?” he poised.

“When I was a young girl, I wanted a life of excitement. A life of money. And in the movies, I always saw spies and assassins as living a life of glamour. Being an upstanding citizen, I went into the spy field, thinking I would get to go out there and kick ass, instead of just look at computer screens and maps and let others chase down the criminals and capture them.

“I was upset with this. I wanted a hands on approach. So I started doing that. Disobeying my superior, hunting down the targets myself and taking them out. She did not like that. Not one bit.” Villanelle wagged a finger at this to show how displeased Carolyn had been. “So I stopped doing that at her request. But, the urge never left me over the years. And as I worked there, I grew disillusioned. The government was full of evil tiny little men and hypocrites spouting bullshit.

“I didn't want part of that. I wanted to make a change. Hunt down the real criminals. And I figured, if being a spy wasn't what I thought it would be like then I would make a career choice. I would be an assassin, but I would maintain my ties with MI6 so that I could provide inside information for my new bosses.” She smiled at this, watching their reaction with hungry eyes.

Nerd and Caveman looked at each other. Caveman grunted, scratched his beard and then Nerd nodded his head. They had drawn to a quick conclusion. She knew they wouldn't trust her and that she would have to prove herself. She was ready.

“Fine then. But you will need to prove your loyalty.” Villanelle smiled, happy. She was ever closer to being with her loved one.

“We need you to kill an agent that has gone dark. That has started giving us a little trouble.”

“Ah, I love the feisty ones. Always the most fun putting those down.” She leans in, lowered voice, eyes bright. “You get to see the light leaving their eyes.”

They exchange looks, uncomfortable with this upfront honesty. Ironic, given their job description. They turn back to her.

“Kill Eve Polastri.”

The smile fades from her lips like it had never existed.


	13. I'm Sorry, but What?!

With the money Villanelle had been given- half upfront, half on delivery of the kill- she goes to a club. The trashiest club she can find in this locality. Full of no good scum. Criminals, adulters, swindlers- you name it, they were all there.

She sets down money on the dirty bar and takes shot after shot of the most expensive alcohol here which she swears is watered down but what does she care. She has money to waste. She kicks the shots back, one after the other. The burn barely registers after the fifth one. The music barely registers. So do the people. A guy tries to hit on her, extending his hand to greet her. She slaps it away and he screams at her for it. She doesn't react to his insults so he leaves, kicking her stool for good measure. She doesn't get unbalanced. She already is. Even more so after the devastating order.

She needs something more. Something to numb this pain. The alcohol isn't doing it for her. She goes in search of someone with it. She knows there is no shortage of people who are carrying something harder than liquor in their bags.

A quick conversation with a woman blitzed out of her mind, and Villanelle has scored a drug that she has no idea what it is. She ingests the white tablet quickly and leans on the wall, waiting for it to kick in.

She counts mentally in her head until she knows the drug has affected her. She gets to 300 before it does; impressed that it works so fast. And suddenly everything seems a bit brighter. A bit better. She smiles and even feels like dancing. Like maybe the world is no longer falling apart and she can just forget about her problems in the world like every other person here, through dance and sweat, and exhilaration of movement.

She has no idea what she looks like; she must be a messy tangle of legs and arms and head bobbing like a chicken. She had grace in chasing down perps, in exacting murder. And no grace in dance. But she doesn't care. She doesn't want anything to matter anymore. Least of all Eve. Eve who stabbed her and left her twice behind and who ruined her dream.

She dances and dances, getting lost in the beat, bumping into people and not caring in the least. And then nature calls and she heads over to the dim and no doubt disgusting bathroom, stumbling slightly as she tries to regain her balance.

She pushes the sticky wooden door and freezes in the doorway.

In the bathroom, she spots her.

A women with hair similar to Eve's.

And suddenly, all this repressed emotion is bursting out of her. Before she knows it she is prowling after the woman whose just entering a stall that has emptied, two or three girls milling out by the sinks and fixing their hair.

The woman goes in, not noticing her, until she turns to close the door and sees Villanelle there, anger twisting her face into something unearthly. “Wh-” she doesn't even get to say anything as Villanelle slams the door shut with one hand, other hand slapped over her mouth as she backs her in. Fake Eve's back hits the wall, she almost falling into the toilet. But then a second later, both of Villanelle's hands are on her throat, squeezing.

Fake Eve's face, which is nowhere as beautiful as real Eve's face, contorts in pain and shock.

Villanelle's choking the shit out of her, vein in her forehead popping out from the effort of it. “Why!?” she screams. “Why did you have to ruin it for me? Why did you have to make my dream into a nightmare! Why.....why did you have to be right?” she asks more softly, losing all her will quite suddenly. Like a flower who no longer has the sun and wilts. Her hands slacken and the woman breaks free, rushing out of the stall in panic.

Villanelle stands there, looking into the dirty toilet water and ignoring the way her tears plop down and mix with it. “This is all shit,” she says quietly to herself. Her dreams have been broken.

* * *

She wakes up the next morning with a terrible hangover and no idea how she got to this unfamiliar room. She picks up her head, looks around. Spots the man from before in her interview. What was he doing here? What was she doing here?

“Good, you're up,” Caveman comments gruffly when he sees she's awake. He gets up from the armchair he was staring at her from creepily.

She pulls a face and mocks his deep voice. “Good, you can talk.”

He shoots her a dark look. “When we gave you this mission, we didn't give you money so you could go and drink it all and not give a shit about your job. We want her dead, got it? Or else you'll be the one whose dead instead.” He pokes her in the forehead with a thick hairy finger and she scowls at him.

He leaves the room, slamming the door shut and she sits up, groaning at the headache she has. Someone must have fetched her from the bar and brought her here. She recognizes the room now. It's where the interview was. She gets up with the finesse of an old woman and goes to the fridge to get some water.

It helps a bit with the headache and she sighs to herself, wondering what she will do now. She needs to draw Eve somehow to her. But how? And why should she? She wanted to be close to Eve, not to kill her. But the job hadn't gone like she wanted and now she was stuck with this disaster on her hands. And she didn't want to spend time thinking on how Eve had been right. Because if she does, then Villanelle will be wrong, and she's never wrong.

No. She's just....misguided in this case.

Yes, she shall say that.

She takes out her laptop and decides to google up some things. Maybe the internet will offer her some respite to this mess that has fallen into her lap. She doesn't stop searching, eyes going dry, until she finds something that has her lips twisting up into a leer and her stomach fluttering in excitement.

* * *

Eve spends way too much time staring at the news, which is why she notices the new addition of a body to her case.

'Housewife Eve tastes Forbidden Fruit of Murder and Goes on Spree' is one headline she finds amusing only because its so wrong. There was nothing forbidden to taste. And it wasn't the other woman in her marriage that caused Eve to snap. She only wonders how Niko feels about this. Surely he must have seen the news and knows now what his ex-wife truly felt about him. Would he feel guilty for being the cause of so many deaths?

She entertains a brief thought of going to visit him, just to see his reaction. Just to see the inevitable hurt in his eyes. But she squashes the thought. She's done with that part of her life. Done with him.

Instead, her eyes zero in on the new death reported in the paper. Exactly her style, but when she looks at the photo, there, carved into the skin of exposed chest, the words, 'Sorry baby 917'.

Eve swallows harshly. Villanelle is trying to communicate with her. Trying to lure her out. Should Eve go? Or should she ignore this? But if she ignores it, than Villanelle could kill more men who look like Niko and then what. Then Eve would be responsible for more hurt. Hurt she swore she wouldn't cause anymore.

She folds the paper together and lets her tongue slide over her teeth in uncertainty. It could be a trap. Maybe MI6 had sanctioned this? But no, despite how shady the agency was, they surely wouldn't stoop this low for little old her. They had been perfectly content in letting her rot in jail, in being the state's problem.

This had to be Villanelle, acting on her own. And if she was, how would Eve get in touch with her? Villanelle had her attention now, but Eve still had no idea where they could meet. What would they even do at this meeting?

Eve closes her eyes, lets the weak rays of light hit her skin, warm her up a bit. 917. It's a clue of some sort, she's fucking sure of it. But what could it mean? Whatever it means, it also means that the cops are working on it, which means they'll find out what it is and intercept either Eve or Villanelle on the way there.

So, Eve discards her first assumption that those are coordinates because it would be too easy. The cops will probably think that and send personal there. Instead, Eve looks at her name and the biblical headliner on the news and goes to a bookstore to find a Bible.

From there, she will work to find the clues that Villanelle has sent her.

On each dead body like they are merely careless note cards and not lives.

* * *

The man's name is Joshua.

It helps even things out a lot.

Eve turns to 917.

Eve's finger lands on the word Kiriath Jearim. She snaps the thick Bible closed. This is child's play. Sometimes the stupidity of cops really irks her.

* * *

“I hope I didn't drive you to murder,” Eve says when she finally finds the spot Villanelle spent picking so meticulously. They're in Israel. The land of hot wind and sand, and even here Eve doesn't feel warm at all. Cold still nips at the tips of her fingers and her toes like some sort of illness she cannot shake.

Will she ever shake it?

The hotel room was also an encoded message for Eve on yet another patch of skin. Another message she could not ignore. If only to stop Villanelle's sudden spree of blood shed. She had waited until all the messages had been writ out before responding in her own manner. Putting out an AD with her own secret messages and hoping Villanelle would be smart enough to interpret it.

Villanelle does that little nose wrinkle Eve finds adorable on only five year olds and murderous intelligence agents. “No, I have killed people before. But never have I killed them to impress the girl I like.”

“You need to stop it.”

Villanelle arches a brow, mocking her. “Or what, miss bossy pants? You'll stab me again?”

“I already apologized to you about it.”

“I don't want your apology.”

“Then what? Do you want to know how guilty I feel about it? About how I regret hurting you?” Eve asks softly, but with a tinge of irritation in her voice.

Villanelle steps closer, not afraid of Eve though she should be. She produces a blade from within her pocket.


	14. Don't be Ridiculous

“This is for stabbing me,” Villanelle holds the knife out like a trophy she is proud of. It has serrated edges. “This is revenge. The knife I will exact it out with.” Eve stares at Villanelle's face, not the knife. As if it was not even there. As threatening as air. She holds her chin up brave.

“It has serrated edges. It will hurt when it goes in. It will hurt even more to pull out. It will scar so ugly. Will cause lots of damage.”

“Okay,” Eve says calmly. “So, are you going to stab me with it, or are you just going to talk about it? Maybe bore me to death with it,” Eve steps closer to Villanalle, so close she by passes the outstretched hand with the knife in it.

Villanelle moves fast, pushing Eve against the column. The knife slices through the air, making a whipping sound and Eve finds the tip of it, over the same spot Villanelle was stabbed. Villanelle's breathing hard through her nose, eyeing the damned spot, like looking at it will make her hand move the knife and do it.

Eve waits. And waits. Her back goes stiff with waiting. Villanelle almost seems to be in a trance. “So,” she prompts and Villanelle jerks awake, looking at Eve's face in mild shock at her own self for being unable to carry through with the action.

“I want to hurt you,” she says with determination, because she does. Because it seems she needs to talk herself into it.

“Do you?” Eve asks, not quite believing her. A smile almost plays at her mouth because she knows Villanelle will not hurt her. Villanelle likes pretty things. Why ruin them? Then they won't be pretty and she won't want them, won't like them. And Villanelle likes liking pretty things and feeling that she likes them.

“I do,” Villanelle states and bolts forward to kiss Eve instead. The kiss is as sharp, perhaps even sharper than the knife. It hurts. All gentle thoughtful feelings. Caring. Sickeningly so. Villanelle's free hand goes to gently cup Eve's face, tips curling into her curls.

Eve doesn't have the patience for this. She bites back. Teeth sinking into Villanelle's bottom lip, both hands grabbing her shoulders and pushing her back so that she collides with the wall hard enough to lose breath. Eve swallows the expulsion of air, licks her way into Villanelle's pliant mouth.

“Eve,” she groans, eyes slipping closed. The knife is still between them and as Eve presses to get closer to Villanelle the tip slips into her skin, breaking the layer there and making her bleed. She barely feels the pain because it melts into the arousal in her veins.

Eventually Villanelle finds some sense and remembers about the useless knife. She sets it down on the dresser behind her, the one Eve's got her pinned by. Now Villanelle has two hands to hold onto Eve. To hold and cherish her.

To pull her closer to her.

Eve's nails bite into her skin. They break it, make it bleed. They bruise with their greedy grip. Villanelle's neck is the biggest victim. Eve mauls it with her teeth. Makes it bright red and black and blue. Villanelle doesn't mind. She just moans and lets her enjoyment of this treatment come out into the air. She's so hot all over and Eve is cooler on top of her, feeling so nice.

All too soon, Eve breaks the kiss. They're both panting hard, several strands of Villanelle's hair slipped free from her ponytail. Someone else might tuck them in behind the ear. Eve just yanks on a swatch of hair, makes her look right into her eyes.

“Don't come looking for me again, or I might have to kill you.” Said in all seriousness. And then she leaves Villanelle, panting and leaning against the wall, trying to get her bearings back like she hadn't been kissed within an inch of her life.

When she goes to the kitchen she finds the knife that had been in her hands had been spirited away by Eve during their session and was now sticking on the table, pining a note in place.

Villanelle sees it's a blown up photo of her.

So, Eve has been sent to kill her.

But Villanelle must kill Eve.

Indeed, what a love story.

Villanelle smiles. Only the best kind.

* * *

Villanelle knows this time that Eve will not come to her. Not for all the hidden messages in the world. Which means she must actually try tracking her down. So she gets in touch with Caveman.

“Tell me where she is,” she demands flatly from him. She's intercepted him as he is getting a falafal from the cart and he scowls at her when her shocking appearance nearly makes him drop it. “Do not sneak up on me, woman,” he spits, opening his jacket to show the threat inside. Eyes bouncing over his flabby midriff, she notices a gun notched to his inside pocket.

“I did not think you were such a frighty cat that a woman like me could make you drop your food,” she says back, the gun not deterring her mouth or her mocking.

“What do you want from me?” he asks as he walks away, shoving the food into his mouth impatiently. The foil crinkles with his motions. Villanelle's eyes crinkle in annoyance as she watches him eat. What a slob. He has food already in the corners of his mouth.

“We talked about this on the phone. Don't act like you don't remember,” she says, following him like a shadow, always one step behind.

“I recall telling you not to bother me about this issue. It's your problem not mine,” he grunts, scarfing down more food. She pockets her hands into the front of her pants. She thinks, his neck is fat, but she could probably still snap it especially from the advantage of being behind him.

He's not even that tall. Just a few inches taller than her really, but he acts like he's the big man.

“Yes, but if she's your agent, than you must have resources on her I can use,” she prompts.

“Didn't you exclusively stalk her in your career at MI6?” he retorts, having hogged down half his falafal. She hopes he chokes on it.

“I did. But I don't have my resources back, quite yet.”

He grunts in displeasure at this. “Like I said, not my fucking problem.”

She's really getting annoyed with him now. She figures, if she ever gets the chance to kill him, she'll take it, consequences be damned.

* * *

Villanelle ends up sleeping with someone to once again get what she wants. Except this time, it's access to Eve's phone number. The guy below her is really into Villanelle but the former MI6 agent's mind is on Eve and only Eve. On how Villanelle would like to have her body below her's, sweating and panting. For Villanelle, sex is nothing more than an exchange of goods. Use it to get something, to prove something, or just to do out of boredom.

But it won't be like that with Eve. No, it will be so much more. It will be something holy.

If only Eve would stop fighting their connection, then they could reach the heavens together.

Villanelle will just have to continue convincing Eve of this until the Asian woman understands it. The faceless man under Villanelle finishes and she gets off, glad to see this done. She quickly dresses and holds out her hand. “The number.”

The man, skinny and with a lit cigarette in his mouth after sex, props himself up on his elbows and looks at her. His body is decidedly too thin and too hairy. “Wouldn't you rather have mine?” he asks, thinking himself as such a great lover.

An insult waits on her tongue, but she won't say it, not until she gets Eve's number. He could be fickle and not give what Villanelle needs if she insults his fragile male pride. “Give me what I came for,” she states with a smile to soften the blow.

He grunts but assents to this, reaching into his bed side drawer and pulling out the paper he has it written on. “Why do you want her number?” he asks as she snatches it from his hand, barely able to contain herself. She does, for the sake of not looking too desperate, fold it and pocket it, her eyes having already memorized the number by heart.

“I need to talk to her.”

“She your ex lover?”

That angers Villanelle. Eve will never be her ex-lover. Only her lover. There will not be a chance in hell for them to break up. Eve was hers. No one else. But hers. The man can sense Villanelle's shift in mood because he shrinks back onto his bed as she leans over him. “That is none of your business,” she hisses, low and eyes gleaming darkly. And then, she leaves the apartment, going out to buy a burner phone.

* * *

People don't talk on the phone nowadays, which is why when Eve gets a call at three in the morning, she doesn't know if she should pick it up or not. It could be spam. Or it could be the 12. Either case, she didn't want to have those conversations. But either case, she better pick it up just in case.

“Hello?” she gets it on the last buzz.

For a long time there is silence on the end and she thinks it might be a mistake call when she hears laughter. Rich, triumphant laughter on the other end. Is someone fucking with her?

“Hello?” she tries again. She doesn't recognize the number. Maybe it's Niko messing with her, but no, it's a woman's laugh.

“So the little shit did his job.”

“Oh.” It's Villanelle. Eve is almost speechless at first. She doesn't know if she's shocked by this or is she expected this to happen. “How did you get my number?”

“I had to do some naughty things to get it,” comes the teasing lilt on the other end. It feels surreal, talking to Villanelle like this. Even though they've seen each other so many times in person, talking on the phone is....intimate. Because now Villanelle has another part of Eve's life which was once private to many people and Eve doesn't know how to feel about it.

“It's three in the morning.” Eve states, for lack of knowing what else to say.

“So?” is the insouciance answer.

“I was sleeping.” Which is a big fat lie.

“No you weren't,” Villanelle spits out.

“No, I wasn't,” Eve confirms with mild amusement. “Why did you call me?”

“I missed you. I wanted to talk to you. You just kissed me and left. That's rude.”

“Yes, well you were there to try and kill me. I figured being rude was the least of the problems between us.”

“As if you don't have to kill me either,” is the quick response. Eve collapses onto the bed covers of a bed that hasn't been slept in for several nights. She looks up at the ceiling. She should end the call, but she doesn't.

When Eve doesn't say anything, Villanelle fills up the empty void. “You know, I had to sleep with this guy to get your number from you. Some black market information dealer. Surprisingly good at his job, but not at the sex.”

Eve can feel jealousy growing in the pit of her stomach. She doesn't want Villanelle sleeping with others. It's not....not right. Or at the very least, Eve doesn't want to know about it.

“So?” she says harshly, failing to keep the hurt from showing.

“He left me unsatisfied. I was hoping you could fix that?” is the coy statement and Eve can't remember how to breathe.

Eve should end the call, but she can't.


	15. Help! Every Time I Try to Kill the Assassin we Accidentally Have Sex

For a long time nothing happens. Eve licks her lips. The clock in her room ticks. And then she works up the courage to speak. “Are you naked?”

“Yes.”

“God.” Bursts out of Eve. Villanelle hadn't even waited to take off her clothes. “Were you not wearing clothes the whole time?”

“Yes.”

Eve closes her eyes, tries to refrain from saying God again. She opens them, but her heart is racing and she's turned on. “We shouldn't be doing this.”

“Whose going to know?' is the coy question, full of naughty promises.

“We'll have to kill each other next time we see each other,” Eve tries to state coldly, hoping it will turn her and Villanelle off.

“Even more reason to do this before we see each other next.”

Eve chuckles. Villanelle doesn't know when to give up, does she. “Did you get my number just to do this?”

“No, like I said. I just wanted to talk. To hear your voice. But then....I had this idea and it was too good to pass up on.”

“It's a terrible idea,” Eve states, trying to get some control back, but this conversation can no longer be tamed, especially because Eve doesn't really want it to stop. She can't say she hasn't imagined Villanelle naked. Or in the throes of passion. Especially not after that kiss they had shared. Eve couldn't remember the last time she had felt so much just from a kiss.

“A terrible idea you're going to love.”

“Don't make it sound like I want this.”

“But you do. Otherwise you would have hung up already. Face it, you crave talking to me as well. You missed me,” Villanelle teases and Eve can imagine the way the cat like eyes will twinkle, nose wrinkling up playfully. As soon as she sees that, she's a goner.

She rolls onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows. She can't control wanting this, but she can control Villanelle's wanting. “Spread your legs,” she orders, tone brisk and command like in a second.

Villanelle doesn't even hesitate. This must be what she wants. “Done,” she breathes, slightly breathless.

“Are you lying on a bed?”

“Yes.”

“On your back?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Stay there, and follow my orders. If you don't, I'm hanging up.”

“Of course,” Villanelle assents. She waits patiently for what Eve will say next.

“Touch yourself. Tell me how wet you are.”

Villanelle moans. “Very wet.”

Eve's throat is dry. “Who made you this wet?”

“You did.”

“What were you thinking of about me that made you this wet?” The blood is roaring in Eve's ears. Nothing exists around her in this moment, except for the phone gripped tightly between her fingers.

“You, fucking me. Taking me nice and hard against a wall.”

That does seem like their style of fucking. No beds, no comfortable positions, just all bent out of shape because they're so used to being bent out of shape over their jobs, over their lives, over each other. “Slide a finger inside yourself. Nice and slow.”

Villanelle lets out another low moan. “Eve...” she murmurs. Eve wishes she was there. Seeing Villanelle. Tasting her. Teasing her. This will have to do. Eve tugs down on the collar of the shirt she's wearing. It's too hot.

“Fuck yourself on it. Pretend it's me,” Eve instructs.

Villanelle complies happily for the soft moans she's giving out, interspersed with calls of Eve's name. Eve presses the phone so hard against her ear. She fears it will break. But she fears not hearing everything coming out of Villanelle's mouth more.

“Put another finger inside.” Villanelle does as told. And before Eve can tell Villanelle to put another one in, there's a long groan of completion. Eve's body flushes so hot it almost makes it hard to think or breath.

Villanelle's and Eve's ragged breathing fills the phone line until the agent is able to recover. “I'd knew you'd help me get the job done.” There is no thank you, but the phrase sounds like a thank you. Eve feels satisfied in ways like an orgasm would have, and yet she's still turned on and buzzing with possible climax.

Eve doesn't say anything to Villanelle just snorts. The two of them don't say anything else to each other, just listen to their breathing across the line, thinking their own privates thoughts. Feeling their own private feelings.

And with Villanelle still on the line, Eve falls asleep for the first time in a long time.

When she wakes up, it's to a text message of a location to met at and a time. Eve doesn't even bother packing. She just goes.

* * *

An arm thrown over her neck as it cuts off her air supply, Eve's other arm snaked down her body, fingers deftly peeling apart soaked lips and then delving into heat-this is Villanelle's fantasy come true.

Eyes roll up until the whites show as Villanelle's head thumps hard against the plaster. The combination of pleasure and lack of air is driving her fucking nuts. She can't stop the way her hips circle. Buck, writhe.

She screams before she even knows she's coming and then Eve is letting up on her throat, just a bit, but not on the hot spot between her legs, pinching her clit and fucking her relentlessly.

Villanelle might have just found her new religion.

And when she's too tired to stand up, legs like jam, Eve lets her slid down the wall, and then she joins her, stripping Villanelle of her soaked pants and panties and spreading her legs open wide like a buffet.

Villanelle doesn't ever know how she could have lived 26 years like this. Without knowing how Eve's fingers and tongue feel like on her. On the very core of her being. It's heaven. Heaven crashing down on her.

No, that's too cliché. But cliches are all Villanelle can think in now.

“Don't stop. Don't stop,” she moans, pulling on Eve's hair, making her get closer.

Eve pauses, just for a second to draw air. It's too long. “I'll fucking _kill _you if you stop!” Villanelle screams down at her, meaning every last syllable and Eve chuckles, a filthy little chuckle that makes Villanelle go boneless. And then her tongue is working again at dismembering Villanelle and maybe getting killed would have left less intense than this.

Less painful, in it's beauty.

* * *

“I can't do this,” Eve confesses when she exits the shower of the rented hotel room, freshly washed. Villanelle is already washed and dressed, peering out the blinded window, scanning the streets for threats.

“Do what?” she asks, doesn't look. Probably because she is fearful of being rejected by Eve. She doesn't want to see it coming from Eve's mouth. If she hears it, she can delude herself that it wasn't the real Eve. Just someone who sounds like her.

“Kill you,” Eve says. Silence. Tense silence. Eve sighs and dries her hair with the towel. It becomes even more curly and fluffy. If she had been hoping that Villanelle would say the same, she was wrong it seemed. Or foolishly hopeless.

“An assassin who can't do her job. How amusing,” Villanelle chuckles and turns from the window to come up to Eve. Eve flinches back at the raised hand but Villanelle only uses it to tuck back a still damp curl.

“I can't do it, but it doesn't mean I won't be able to find a way around it to still do my job,” Eve states firmly, because showing Villanelle weakness and kindness had been a mistake.

“I was talking about myself,” Villanelle says softly, hand lingering on Eve's cheek. “I thought I would make an amazing assassin but already I can't fulfill my first mission.

Villanelle can't kill Eve either. Eve melts at hearing those words. “Now what do we do?”

“I don't know.”

Villanelle's lip corners quirk up, because it is very apparent she knows.

“If we can't kill each other, than we kill those who ordered us to do it.” And this, is as close to a declaration of love that they will get to, for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: A team up between Villanelle and Eve :)


	16. A New Journey

“Did you do the job?” asked Caveman. Seemed he was here without his friend today. What a shame. Villanelle wouldn't have minded snapping both their necks at once. She shifts, crosses her legs. She's wearing thick black boots and a suit, with no shirt underneath. He looks at the tops of her breasts peeking out and she pretends she doesn't notice. She wore this suit more for Eve's sake.

“Of course. Who do you take me for,” she said playfully. He was not amused.

“How did she die?” he leaned in.

“La petit morte.”

He frowned, not understanding what she said. “Speak English you god damned bitch.”

His foul language did not sour her mood. “It means little death.” A cocky smirk on her face, so full of self satisfaction it would make a humble person sick. “But the French commonly use it to denote orgasms during sex.”

He scratches his beard, ugly face confused. “What does that have to do with her? You fucked her before you killed her?”

“No. But I am going to fuck you over before you die,” and then casual like she pulls out the gun she had strapped to the inside of her suit jacket and shoots him right in his face.

“Fucks sake that is not how we do things in the assassin line of work,” Eve scowls through the ear piece. She's on the roof in front of this hotel room, watching through her binoculars, sniper rifle trained on the room just in case.

“You don't kill people?” Villanelle hums, looking over her black combat boots to make sure no blood had splattered over them. His head had been juicy. She hadn't expected it from someone so dumb and with nothing but air there.

“Yes, we do,” Eve admits in 'obvious' tone of voice. “But we don't just kill anyone. You were supposed to convince him you'd killed me. What happened to the file? The fake information?”

“He didn't believe me. He knew our connection and didn't trust me to actually kill you, so I had to improvise.” She gets up, puts her gun away, checks his pockets for anything of use. Finds a pack with one gum stick left inside, takes it and chews on it as she hums and looks through his contacts on his phone.

“Oh, bullshit,” Eve says, crushing her walkie talkie in her hand as she ogles Villanelle's ass through the binoculars. “You didn't even try. You didn't stick to the script for one second.”

Villanelle doesn't deny it. “I always wanted to do something cool like that. Like jump through a window and kick ass as they do in the movies.”

“I'm about to jump through this window and kick _your_ ass,” Eve growls.

“Maybe you could if you stopped staring at it for a second.”

Eve sputters on the other end of the line. “What! I was not-”

“It's okay. People always say 'what an ass' when I'm around,” Villanelle said cockily. She took the money in his wallet, figuring she could buy a coffee the least for the troubles he gave her.

Eve throws the binoculars away in a huff, mad at her own self for succumbing to Villanelle's physique. “I don't think they're talking about your ass, but you're personality. Now, hurry up and get out of there. We need to figure out how to fix the plans you've messed up.”

The line cuts and Villanelle frowns. “Party pooper.”

She leaves the wad of her chewed up gum in his ear hole before leaving.

* * *

Eve and Villanelle walk down the street. Villanelle showing off in her nice suit, and Eve wearing a beanie, baggy clothes, and sunglasses perched on her nose. She looks like a skater boy who hasn't been able to give up the lifestyle and it's ruined his marriage. She's got a half empty cup of coffee in her hand. “I don't know if this is a good idea,” Eve comments for the fifteenth time in a row as they approach Carolyn's house.

“You're an assassin. Live a little,” Villanelle says cheerily and with a bounce to her step. Eve doesn't share the exuberance. She only worries. “Your organization has every right to kill me on the spot. What's to say they won't as soon as I show up?”

She whirls on Villanelle, accusing her of this. Villanelle is infuriatingly chipper. “They won't.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I'll be there.”

“You're no longer part of the force!” Eve points out angrily and pulls them aside to get out of the way of eavesdropping pedestrians.

“But I will be when they see you.”

“I don't follow your logic at all. They could kill you too. Especially for you becoming an assassin.”

“But I'm a terrible one. I haven't actually killed a target.”

“You killed Ivan Brigmagov!”

“Who?” Villanelle blinks.

“The guy who hired you. The ugly one!”

“Oh, I didn't know he had a name,” Villanelle wrinkles up her nose in distaste.

Eve rolls her eyes. Typical. “He's a big hotshot in the assassin business.”

“You wanted him dead, so I killed him,” Villanelle said playfully.

Eve tsked harshly, becoming more exasperated with the blonde. “I told you I wanted information out of him, and you killed him.”

“He had a very kill-able face,” Villanelle said, hands in pockets, relaxed and not perturbed by any of this.

“That's it, I'm leaving,” Eve turned on her heel but Villanelle grabbed her by the wrist and spun her tightly to her. “Eve, please.” Her voice got lower, serious. “Trust me.”

Eve didn't respond for a long time, searching for trust and honesty in the planes of Villanelle's face. “I don't know if I can.”

“How about this,” Villanelle dropped Eve's hand like touching her now after having heard Eve doesn't trust her, burns her skin. “If I mess up, you can stab me. Again.”

Eve doesn't look convinced. Villanelle rubs a circle over the clothing where her wound is. “I know you like stabbing me,” she sings playfully. “Don't turn this offer down.”

Eve at last heaves a sigh. “Fine. You can try talking to your boss about having me join MI-6 even if I think it's insane.”

Villanelle gives a fist bump. “You won't regret it,” she says and rushes off.

Uncertainty fills Eve. What if this is the last time she sees Villanelle?

She watches her retreating back with longing. Eve already regrets this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is the end of arc two; arc three will start up next. Will Eve and Villanelle's plan to join MI-6 succeed? Or are they just throwing themselves into more danger?


	17. Confidential

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: man season three was a whirlwind. I'm still processing it, but hopefully season four will give us the closure and happiness we need.

Eve stares at the form in front of her. It's got confidential written all over it. It makes her throat dry and she looks up at Carolyn's impassive face in front of her. The woman hasn't moved a single muscle, not one iota of expression on her face. It's unnerving.

She reminds Eve of those sociopaths whose path she has encountered many times. The thought of working for another one makes her stomach squeeze. But she's doing this for Villanelle. Villanelle who has somehow gotten them a position together on Carolyn's team at MI6. Eve doesn't know how Villanelle did it, how she managed to convince an estranged boss that having the very assassin they were hunting for on their team was a good idea.

The woman sure is charismatic. Eve will give her that. Charismatic and determined. “So, if I sign this, I'm signing over my life to you?”

“Don't be dramatic Eve,” Carolyn says, exhaling through her nose. “We already have Villanelle for that.” The no nonsense tone makes Eve's stomach twist even harder. Is this a good idea? Joining the enemy, making an enemy of the 12? But, Eve's never been great at making decisions. She's impulsive at the worst moments. Which lead to even worse moments. She sucks in a breath, picking up the pen. Carolyn's eyes watch her like a hawk. Eve doesn't know if this is the right choice, but it might be the first step in the right direction. Feeling like she is signing over her life to the devil, she picks up the heavy black pen and hastily scribbles her name on the paper. The ink barely dries before Carolyn's vulture hands, greedily snap up the file, closing it shut and tucking it under her armpit. She stands in one smooth motion. “Thank you, Eve. We are glad to have you on our team. Hopefully this relationship can be mutually beneficial.”

The unsaid threat is unsaid, but Eve can read between the lines. If Eve's not helpful, she'll be eliminated. And it's not like it will be easy to run, given where she is. Smack dab in the middle of spy territory. Surrounded by all sides by her enemies.

“It will be,” Eve says, holding out the pen for Carolyn to take. She doesn't, just looks at it.

“Consider it part of your welcome gift to this team,” Carolyn says and Eve lowers the pen, as the woman leaves the stark white room with it's lone table. Eve sits, waiting to be escorted to another room so her process of becoming part of the team is cemented. Eve looks down at the pen.

MI6 it states on it. In cursive writing. She lets out a dry laugh. Seems she's really in it now.

* * *

“Ah, told you you would get in,” Villanelle says once Eve has been checked for weapons and examined and tested thoroughly by the staff to make sure she was fit for work. She bounces her hip into Eve's, hands in her pockets. She's wearing a preppy outfit. White button up shirt, sweater tied over her shoulders, and khaki pants. She's smiling widely.

Eve doesn't share her same enthusiasm. “The 12 have even more reason to kill us now.”

“Doesn't that make it more exciting?” Villanelle nods her head, eyes gleaming. Eve's eyes seem to grow duller at the prospect of this.

“I don't know, Villanelle. I did this for you. For us. But...I'm still going to be a killer. I'm still killing either way, just for less 'evil' guys. If you tried to redeem me this way-”

Villanelle scoffs. “Ha! No, I didn't do it to redeem you. I did it because I like you, and I want us to be able to do normal things together. Like working in the same office, getting drinks after work. Maybe going out to dinner.” She reaches out a hand to touch Eve's chin but the woman backs away.

“Villanelle, this isn't fun and games. You want what we probably will never have.”

Villanelle's brows furrow in hurt. “But you had it with Niko. A home, a married life. You did boring things together. I don't understand. You don't want to do exciting things with me, nor boring things! What do you want to do?!” The confusion is palpable on Villanelle's beautiful face.

“What I and Niko had was a joke. I couldn't keep being normal like him for long. Things like that- people like _us_ don't deserve.”

“We don't deserve to be happy?” Villanelle asked, a near pout on her lips.

Eve shook her head, a wordless answer to the question.

Villanelle didn't know what to say to this. She clenched and unclenched her jaw.

“Ladies, are you ready?” Carolyn's voice cuts in; she's standing at the other end of the hallway. “It's time we got a meeting briefing under way.”

Villanelle turns quickly on her heel and Eve follows after, a bit more slowly. She doesn't know what to expect when she entered the other side of the double doors but it's not a warm welcome. Which she doesn't get. All she gets is either wary looks or highly suspicious ones. She tries to not let it hurt her feelings and stands awkwardly next to Carolyn, like a child next to a parent.

“Hello everyone. I'm sure you've heard by now that we have a new addition to the team. This is Eve Polastri.”

Eve can see all the team members stiffen at the use of her name. She knows that they've spent months tracking her, getting to know her and her proclivities- all the horrors of her kills, really- and now she's just here. She could easily wipe them out, is probably what's going through their minds. But she won't. She offers up a smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. In this moment, she feels more scared of them really.

“Eve, that is Kenny, he handles electronic exchanges. Hugo helps with that as well, and Elena is an investigator just like Hunter. As for Oksana, you're well acquainted with her I'm quite sure.” Eve can't tell it that's meant to be a jibe or neutral, but even if it is meant to be snide, she won't comment on it. Her presence here is very circumstantial, in that the circumstances include Carolyn's immunity. Which means Eve will have to suck up to her.

Oksana's face is the only one who isn't looking at Eve in fear. Though it's not happiness either, not after the talk they had.

“I look forward to working with all of you,” Eve said, which was a lie. But better this than facing the 12's representatives which would not be happy at what she had done.

“Alright then, back to work,” Carolyn says and leaves the room. It's silent after her departure and Eve stands stiffly about, not sure what else to do. Oksana rescues her. “We have a desk for you,” she says, an apple in her hand that she's seemed to procure from nowhere. She takes a big crunch of it. Everyone watches over their cubicles walls as Oksana and Eve set up Eve's desk.

“Hm, a desk,” Eve hums as she sits down. This feels like a new experience. “I've never had a desk before. I mainly did field work.”

No use in sugar coating the work she's done. They've all probably seen it in high detail, examined it's most minute meaning in their investigations.

“What am I even going to do at this desk?” Eve asks. “I thought Carolyn wanted me out.”

“She does. But not yet. We're looking into another assassin. Why don't you get some coffee, get settled. We're starting a de-briefing in about ten minutes on him. Should get you up to speed.” It's weird, hearing Oksana speak this way- shop and all businesslike. She could never imagine Villanelle as a sitting behind a desk, but now they both are. It's amusing in a way that Eve can't quite explain. Like giving two caged tigers a salad for dinner, perhaps. She wonders how the rest of the team will fare with their combined restlessness and unpredictability.

Oksana walks off, going to her desk, tossing the half eaten apple up and down as she does so. She boots her computer up and Eve spares a glance at her over her shoulder but Oksana's head is blocking the computer screen so Eve can't see what's on it.

Feeling eyes on her, too curious for their own good, Eve pulls off the heavy coat she's still wearing, and pulls her hair down from it's bun. The tension leaves her head momentarily. She lets out a small breath. What has her life become? She watches the computer start up, no idea on what even to look at. She wonders, how long will this last before it becomes too much for her? Before she can't pretend to be normal anymore?

It was no wonder Villanelle couldn't hack it entirely either and had run off to find Eve. Eve runs a hand through her hair and feels the curls move with the motion. She might need to get a haircut soon. Not so much out of need but to make her a smidgen less recognizable. Safety, then. She gets up and goes to make a coffee, curious eyes on her once more. She waits as the coffee brews, hands in her pockets, shoulder slumped forward, trying to come off as least threatening as she can. She knows she's not fooling anyone, but she can try.

There's the rolling of chairs as the members get up to sit at the table in front of the projector screen so that they can watch the presentation on the new assassin they're hunting down. Did they do this when looking for Eve? Did Oksana sit in front and marvel at Eve's kills? Did she stare at Eve's wonderful hair? Did she shout in excitement when she recognized Eve as being the woman who saved her from the shithole life?

The coffee pot continues taking it's sweet time- Eve knows she's going to miss the start of the meeting. Why is it that an organization like MI6 can't even afford a proper coffee maker? Eve had always made sure to buy the best one with her money.

This coffee would taste like crap, she knew it. When it finally chugs to, it drips slowly into the Styrofoam cup underneath. She takes it, blows on it, takes a sip, and winces when the taste hits her taste buds. Disgusting. She turns to the meeting happening, Oksana not looking at her at all. She's still probably pissed about what Eve said before, but it's true. Why should they deserve happiness after all the pain they dealt? Villanelle will comes about eventually. Or not.

“...he's been operating out of three countries, mainly in the slav region- Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. He's been working for a long time but it's only now that he's become prolific. His assassinations are evolving and hitting stronger individuals,” Hugo says, clicking the button and moving the slides. Eve sees a familiar face on it and can't stop herself from spouting out the following words.

“Oh, we're hunting down Larry?” Eve hums casually, coffee in one hand and other tucked under her armpit to try to bring some warmth to it. Why are MI-6 departments so cold? Needlessly cold. But reflecting of government heart, she personally thinks. She should put her jacket back on.

They all pause to look at her.

The woman called Elena speaks first. “You know him?”

“Yea, we worked a case together. Nice guy.” She quickly tacks on, for their sake, “once you get past all the uh, brutal killings he does. Personally I just think he has an anger issue. Needs some therapy.”

“That would make two,” Hunter says under his breath and Eve scowls down at him- she knows she's not exactly a saint, nor welcome here. She's irritated but not offended entirely by it. Villanelle is.

“Hey, shit head. Either shut up or when you insult someone, say it loud and with spine and not like the little bitch you are,” is out of her mouth as soon as he finishes. She's turned in her chair, glaring angrily at him. He seems incredibly uncomfortable.

“Oksana-” Kenny sighs, trying to calm her down.

Oksana gets up, kicking her chair angrily as she does so. “It is alright, I will take myself out on a walk to 'cool my head' ,” she scowls because it seems this isn't the first time she's been told to do this, given how she had reacted so violently to this comment on Eve's disreputable character.

Eve hates explaining that she can take care of herself.

Oksana leaves and everyone relaxes, happy to not have to fight her off.

“Gone to take a walk like a proper bitch,” growls Hunter under his breath, once more. Eve can hear him.

“She was right. If you're going to insult someone, be louder,” Eve says as she walks past him, wanting to go out and check on Villanelle. “Here, this outta help.” And she pours her hot coffee on his pants as she leaves. He screams in pain as he jolts upwards and the rest clamor in outrage but she's out the door.


	18. Benches are Where all Important Conversations Happen

She finds Villanelle taking out her frustrations on some poor water cooler. Kicking it with her nice shoes and muttering under her breath in Russian. “What did it do to you?” Eve asks in mild amusement, making Villanelle stop.

“You should go back to the meeting,” she says coolly, trying to act like she hadn't just been revenging herself on the machine next to her. She tries to keep a calm face but Eve can see the edges of anger with the way her jaw is tensed, her lip curled up the tiniest bit at the corner of her lips.

“Why. What's the point? Whatever they know about Larry is less compared to what I know of him,” she says confidently before she sits down on the bench by the water cooler. “Come, sit with me.”

“I don't want to.”

“You do.”

Villanelle pulls a face at this but does as asked. The bench is too small for the two of them to sit far apart so they don't even try to maintain a pretense of this. “Should I- should I call you Oksana or Villanelle here?”

Villanelle shrugs, not looking at Eve. Refusing to do so. Her shoulders are tensed and she's sitting slouched forwards, hands clasped together, legs spread apart. “Perhaps....it's best you call me Oksana here. And use my codename...elsewhere.”

“Oksana on the streets, Villanelle in the sheets,” Eve can't help from murmuring. She can see the pull of a frown on Villanelle's face from this angle where she can only see a sliver of her beautiful face.

“What does that mean?”

“It's not important,” Eve brushes over briskly, shaking her head to clear her thoughts of using the codename during sex. “It's just saying.”

“Hm,” Villanelle hums but doesn't follow up with anymore questions to ask.

“I worry for you,” Eve says after she lets silence fill the air for a solid minute.

“Why worry for me? You are the one they do not like-”

“You see me reflected in you, so when they reject me it's like they're rejecting a part of you. Rejecting your love for me.”

Villanelle wants to refute this, but she does not. “I was supposed to be the one getting inside your head and not the other way around.” She whines like a kid whose favorite toy got taken away.

“You can't win them all. Look, they're going to keep being mean and distrustful of me and they have every right to. I worked for the enemy. I _was_ the enemy. So, it's alright. You don't need to protect me. I can do that. And you doing it for me just makes them wary of you. Don't do that for me. Though it is very chivalrous of you.”

“So then what should I do?” Villanelle nearly whines, leaning back into the bench.

Eve answers. “Just let me handle things on my own.”

“I want to be there for you. I want to be a supportive girlfriend.”

Eve jerks her head to look at Villanelle who is pouting now. “Is that what we are?” she asks with a hint of disbelief. She had never thought to give their relationship any thought before. To label it. She didn't dare to, too afraid to do so.

Villanelle suddenly doesn't look as certain as she had felt before. “Aren't we?”

“Why do you think so?”

“It's okay, we don't have to-”

Eve cuts in by placing a hand on the back of Villanelle's. “It's fine. I'm just curious about what you think.”

“Well, we had sex. And I think about you a lot. Like, a lot. Everyday,” Villanelle confesses, her voice a bit rough from emotion.

“I think girlfriends is a bit immature. What about lovers? Do you want to be my lover Villanelle?”

“Yes, I would,” Villanelle's mouth splits open, and yes, Eve knows they just talked about not being together, about not trying to pretend to be normal, to pretend they could have anything normal, so she prefaces, “but we need to define our expectations with each other,” Eve fills in and watches as Villanelle's smile dips.

“I expect good sex. The kind we had before.” She says in all seriousness.

“The one with knives and pain?”

“Yes, I liked it,” Villanelle said.

“That I can do. Because it's not normal,” Eve nods her head.

“So we can't do normal things? No drinks after work?” Villanelle pouts. Eve sighs, and they're back at this.

“I want....normal. But not normal at the same time. Because I don't think we deserve such a thing.”

“Because we've done bad things,” Villanelle nodded her head sagely. “But what if we did good things to make up those bad things?”

Eve laughs, she can't help it. Villanelle scowls; it's hurting her feelings. But Eve can't stop. “Oksana, it's not easy like that. I can't just...do what, throw away my recyclables and make up for the murder of two men.”

“But what if you kill bad men to make up for killing good men,” Villanelle shrugs. “But then again, is there such a thing as a good man?” she posits and Eve rolls her eyes.

“I am not going to have a philosophical debate about this. Not here, not now. Not ever,” Eve states firmly.

“How about this,” Villanelle suggests, “what about we ease into the normal things? You know, start small. Get ice cream, watch movies together.”

“Why are you so optimistic about this?”

“And since when did you care about what the world thought about you or what you owed it?” Villanelle shoots back. “Fuck them. Fuck all of them. All we can do as people is do the best we can to live life and enjoy it.”

“Are you two done making out and ready to head back to the meeting?” Hugo strides up, interrupting them.

Eve scowls at him as Villanelle pulls a face. “We were not making out!” she exclaims.

“Then being chatty Cathy's,” he said, spreading out his hands. “Either way, I don't care. Get your butts back into the room. We need your input, Eve. And Oksana, we need your sharp eye.”

“Fine,” Villanelle groans, like a little child.

“Also, I think you burned Hunter's dick off,” Hugo grins at Eve. “Nice job. We've all been wanting to stick it to him at some point or another.”

Villanelle turns to Eve with wide delighted eyes. “You did not!”

“I did.”

Villanelle lets out a brief absurd laugh. “This is amazing. I have to see this.” She jumps up from the bench, in a better mood. “Hunter, pull down your pants and show me your burned dick!” she yells, startling a man walking down the hall. Now it's just Hugo and Eve. He slinks over to the water cooler, helping himself to some water. He pulls down the tab, looks at Eve. “Not going after your girlfriend?”

“She's not my girlfriend,” Eve states, “she's my lover.”

“I can't believe the two of you are actually involved, and that Carolyn is allowing the two of you back on the force,” he whistles before looking down in confusion at his empty cup. “Why is this not working?”

“Oksana kicked it around.”

“Ah, makes sense,” Hugo says, giving up. “I am thirsty though,” Hugo says, eyes cutting to Eve but Eve isn't looking at him anymore. He crushes the cup in his hand.

“What was she like?”

“Oksana?”

“Yes, what was she like before. Before she went after me.”

Hugo sighs and sits down next to Eve. He sits in a similar posture to Villanelle's earlier one, but somehow it's less attractive. “She was....devoted. Oksana always had a fixture on woman assassins. It's why she was put on this task force. To sniff out people like you. And she was good at her job. But then she began getting bored, reckless. Things were too easy for her. And then she came across you. And it was like...” he made an exploding motion with his hands. “Something sparked inside her and she became obsessed with finding you, getting to see who you were. You were really hard to track. You went under every single radar and you'd been working for so long. But your work had no discernible style. Your killings could have been done by common thugs. And you're...Asian. An Asian woman. Not to be a dick, but here in the UK people don't tend to notice you all that much.”

“I know,” Eve murmured. “It's why they called me the Ghost, in the 12. I could get in anywhere. I was discrete.”

“And then you got...disgruntled?” he ventures and she chuckles.

“Don't push your luck.”

“I just want to know. How _did_ she find you? It's never been clearly explained, especially since Villanelle was thrown off the force and then she's back on it and Carolyn has been exquisitely mum about it all. Like it never happened,” he comments, spreading his arms on the back of the bench. He almost touches Eve's hair.

She doesn't like him touching it.

“She found me in a bar,” Eve says, not wanting to impart too much about this moment. She thumbs the ring on her finger.

“Really?” he is incredulous.

“Don't you know, everything good or bad happens in a bar,” Eve says a touch sardonically.

He laughs. “You're funny. I can see why she likes you.” His eyes rake over her. “That and your looks,” he adds on and she shakes her head at him.

“And then what?”

He seems a bit thrown off that she's just barging through his subtle flirty comments but clears his throat and answers her. “And then she kinda hide me away, like I was her secret mistress or something. But I couldn't take it. I had to run. Some bad people were after me.” At Hugo's arched brow, she corrects, “worse people than me. And then I was supposed to kill her and then she tried to kill me, and,” she heaves a heavy sigh, “and then we-”

“-fucked?” Hugo fills in and Eve gives him a sharp look. He is unfazed. “Everyone has a kink. You just like crazy women, and so does Oksana. And so do I,” he adds almost to himself. Eve pretends not to hear it.

“Do you think it's only an obsession?” Eve asks. She's feeling insecure now. She knows Villanelle is the one of the two of them that is open about her feelings and that actively tries to be with Eve despite all. But what if it's just a fascination? Because Villanelle studies assassins, namely woman assassins. And what if she just wants to crack Eve. Get inside her brain. And that it's not love for Eve, but love for what Eve contains inside her gray matter?

“She wasn't like this with anyone else, if that helps,” Hugo answers after a moment's hesitation.

“She wasn't obsessed with them?”

Hugo shrugs. “I mean, she's Oksana. She would get obsessive with her work. With tracking the women down. But with you...it's different. It's almost like a sort of reverence.”

That makes sense. “I saved her life.”

“What, recently?” he asks, shocked by this. Eve doesn't know why she is saying all this. She's saying too much she knows that.

“No, a long time ago. Back before she was Villanelle and only when she was Oksana. It...it made a huge difference on her.”

“How did you even help her?” Hugo whistles lowly, impressed.

“By killing,” Eve says as this should be obvious. “Isn't that the only thing I'm good at?”

“Well, I'm sure you're good at other things-”

“I wasn't asking for assurance,” Eve stands up. “Let's go back in there and hunt down Larry.”


	19. We're Going on a Trip

Eve's on time to work, but she's bleary eyed. She can't seem to get any sleep recently. It's why she feels so sloppily dressed, having put on some random pants that are about a size too small that she meant to return, and some off white shirt she really doesn't like. Hugo whistles at her as she takes her jacket off and fluffs out her hair.

“You surely do put the ass in assassin,” Hugo grins at her, arms crossed behind his head as he leans back in his wooden chair, gloating like he delivered the line to finish all lines.

She looks around the room, as if he can't possible be talking to her. But he is. “Are you hitting on me?” her mouth gapes open. “Do you not know I killed others?” It's a rhetorical question. He knows; everyone here knows.

“I like dangerous women,” he shrugged.

“Don't take it personally, babe,” Elena mentions. “He tries to sleep with everyone regardless of who they are.”

“He'd better not say that when Oksana is around,” Kenny adds as he clicks at something on his keyboard. “Or else his days of sleeping with anyone might be over soon.”

Hugo scowls, swivels in his chair. “I think Hunter knows a thing or two about that.”

Hunter sneers at them. They all know he had to go get treatment for the third degree burns he had received on his crotch. Hugo had commented on how much it hurt to piss now. Good, he deserved it, Eve thought with satisfaction.

She set her stuff down by her desk and sat down, taking a deep breath in. It had been a week of working here and she hadn't gotten bored yet. In fact, she found that working with others spiced things up a bit. Especially the dynamic in this office. Kenny was pure and innocent, Elena was sassy, Hugo thought with his dick, and Hunter was a dick. And Oksana was Oksana. Surprisingly she was super focused on her work and was really good at it when she was trying.

They were already closing in on Larry, tracking down his location. Eve wanted to tell them she could probably get his location much easier for them. Because she could. Instead of flexing that fact, she decided she would call up an old friend. She left and dug out a burner phone she had bought this morning. Oksana wasn't in the office yet, so Eve wasn't going to miss much yet.

The phone rings and on the last one, he picks up.

“Hello?” his thick Russian voice fills the space on the line and she smiles despite herself. She has missed him. He was kinda a brother figure to her.

“Do you make it a habit to pick up random phone calls?” she teases, leaning against the wall of the private alcove she found.

“I knew it was you,” he says and she can't tell if he's angry with her or not. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Calling you.”

“Not that. Why did you run away?”

“I didn't run away. I was forced away.”

“By who?”

“By the 12. I can't work for them anymore.”

He sighs, long and suffering. “Why not?”

“I just....I just can't.”

“Is it Villanelle?”

Her veins fill with ice cold blood. How does he know?

“Why do you say that?”

“Eve, I have connections in MI6. I am not stupid. They told me things.”

Eve knew he had contacts but she didn't consider where exactly those contacts are. She wished she had. What was he going to do now? Rat her out? Get her killed? Or kill Oksana?

“And now what?” she whispers, wishing perhaps she hadn't called him.

“Now....that depends on you. What are you doing?”

“I can't kill for the 12. I couldn't kill Villanelle. And I know I was on thin ice-”

“You were, but now you're buried. Eve, they are very unhappy. They want you dead.”

She closes her eyes. “Will you tell them? Tell them about me?”

He laughs, his loud booming laughter. She's only ever heard it when he is really happy or when he's really upset. Which is it this time? “No, I won't. I like you Eve. I won't get you in trouble. But other people might be looking for you. Be careful.”

She breathes out in relief. She was worried. “Actually, I'm looking for someone too.”

“Who?”

“Larry Niven. I need to find him.”

“And why is that?” he asks suspiciously.

“I'll do you a favor if you tell me and don't ask why.”

“Is it to impress your new girlfriend? Does she like your killings?”

Eve pulls a long face. “Why do you always assume everyone who kills must have a thing for killing.”

“But don't you?” he poises, “otherwise you wouldn't do it.”

He has a point but whatever. She pushes a hand through her hair. “Can you just tell me?”

“What if the favor I want from you is not to kill Larry Niven. He's a pretty good guy,” Konstantin admits.

“I know he is. Just got a bit of a temper.”

“Seriously, will you not kill him if I tell you not to?”

“You understand if I don't kill him someone else will.”

“You think those pencil pushers have it in them to kill someone?” he chortles.

“You forget what Oksana is capable of,” she says coolly and his laughter stops.

“But they don't want her to do it, but you to do it.”

“I told you not to ask me questions,” she grunts out. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

He sighs heavily. “I suppose I should ask you another favor then.”

“Yes you should.”

Konstantin gives Eve the information she wants and then she hangs up on him, he leaving her without mention of his favor. She knows he will call her back at some point for it. She just hopes he keeps his word on not telling anyone about her being here. She wonders who his contact is. Perhaps it is Carolyn? Or someone higher above her? Now this will gnaw at her for a long, long time.

For good measure she snaps the burner flip phone in half and then tosses it out.

When she comes back to the office, Oksana is there and their eyes meet, smiles growing on their faces.

“Good morning, Eve. I hope you slept well!” Oksana greets, wagging her brows up and down.

“I did. I have news,” she clears her throat, addressing everyone else in the room. “I know where Larry Niven is staying. He's in an inn in Ireland,” she holds up the piece of paper she wrote the info on. “He's going to be there for the weekend. I can go up if the train tickets are secured, and take care of him before he leaves.”

No one speaks at first. Hunter very much looks like he'd like to say something nasty but doesn't for sake of his crotch.

“Are you...where did you get that information?” Elena asks.

“An old friend.”

“Can he...be trusted?” she pops up a brow, saying this delicately.

Eve huffs. “You're asking if this information can be trusted. Yes, it can be.”

“But doesn't Larry only operate in eastern Europe, specifically in three countries?” Hugo points out as they all look at her. Oksana looks like she'd like to jump to Eve's defense but remembers Eve's words and stops herself.

“Yes, but as we've covered before, he is moving up in this world. So, he's getting sent on other missions. Bigger ones. I know he's going to do a hit there, because they've trusted his skills. Soon, he might be making more kills all over England and we need to stop him before he gets promoted like that again.” Eve speaks and hopes they'll trust her. She knows she's not exactly trustworthy.

The team all look at each other, finally Kenny comments. “We can run the idea by Carolyn. After all, what do we have to lose if this hunch is wrong?”

Oksana is delighted by this. She makes a noise about it. “We can go as a couple. Undercover,” Oksana jumps up, linking her arm through Eve's. “What do you say? An American couple come to see the quaint Irish countryside?” her accent switches to American fluidly.

“I don't think you need to come along, Oksana,” Kenny says. “It should be fairly easily. Eve might not even need a cover story. If it's a resort she can just sneak in through the staff entrances.”

“Just send the two crazy bitches along. It'll give us all a breather,” Hunter grumbles out, and good, it seems he's taken their lessons to heart because he is speaking up louder about his complaints now.

Oksana tenses but Eve openly puts a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “Wonderful idea Hunter. I'm glad you can finally contribute something to this team, even if it is your nasty attitude.”

His face turns red with anger but he clamps his lips shut.

* * *

They end up both going.

The train ride over has Villanelle antsy and full of energy about their trip. “Just like real couples,” she smiles as Eve sits in front of her and reads a paper. The ride will take some time, and she's not quite prepared for dealing with Villanelle's enthusiasm for that long. Though it is endearing in a strange way.

“We should go to a cafe, or walk the countryside. There are so many things we can do in Ireland!”

“Maybe after. I need to finish my work first,” Eve says pointedly to remind Villanelle the actual purpose of this trip and Villanelle bobs her head. Eve looks at her, as the blonde Russian looks out the window, watching the land change before her. She's beautiful, Eve knows this. And yet she hasn't looked at her enough, or even told her this. Eve keeps her feelings close to her chest for fear. For fear of anything going wrong.

Besides, this obsession of Villanelle's might end at any given point and then what? What will Eve have if she places all her bets on one color?

Then she'll lose everything.

Villanelle turns and sees that Eve is looking at her with an unguarded look. There's softness in her eyes, and a hint of vulnerability. It sits on her tongue to say something snarky. To interrupt the moment; instead she doesn't. She meets Eve's gaze with her own. The Asian woman startles when she comes out of her inner thoughts to notice the outside world. To notice Villanelle matching the same longing in her eyes with her own brand.

And Eve....Eve can't stand the longing between them. Can't have Oksana think it was longing. Her defenses snap up and she leans into the blonde whose eyes follow Eve like a cat. “Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes.”

She drops the paper and leaves, Villanelle's eyes growing very large as it hits her. Oh!

She bounces in her seat, tapping her hands on her legs. Two minutes feels like way too long for her to wait. But she does it, bottom lip sucked in, trying to control her lack of control. She stares at her watch like it's the enemy, urging the minute hand to move.

As soon as it passes 12 a second time she's bolting up from her seat, almost knocking over an elderly woman. She doesn't apologize but does righten the woman up so she doesn't tip over, before Villanelle tries the bathroom. As soon as she slides the single cabin door open, two strong hands grab her and pull her in, sliding and locking the door shut behind her.

The cabin is small but at least it looks to be clean. Eve's lips claim Villanelle's own and the blonde muffles a groan that threatens to come bursting out of her mouth. Eve swallows it greedily. And then her hands are everywhere, grabbing and pinching and pulling Oksana's expensive shirt out of her pants, before sliding hands down her pants. Oksana is eager to help and she undoes her pants, shimmying them down a bit as Eve grabs Villanelle by the shoulders and spins her around so her back is against the sink. The pain of the collision hurts but in a good way.

“Up,” Eve instructs, all rough and commanding. Her eyes are dark, pupils huge and Villanelle wants to be consumed by her even more. She hops on obediently and Eve jams two fingers right into her without any warning. Villanelle gasps at the rough entrance but soon the sting is gone as pleasure overwhelms her. She moves her hips as well as she can on the slippery surface, one hand gripping the sink edge, the other wrapped in Eve's glorious hair like she needs to encourage Eve anymore. Eve's mouth is on her neck, kissing, sucking, and Villanelle's eyes roll back into her head as she moans loudly and comes before it's even been two minutes.

Her head thunks into the mirror behind her and her release coats Eve's fingers. She's trying to regain her breath, as Eve slides out her, wiping her fingers on some toilet paper and throwing it out. The edge that had momentarily filled Eve is gone, and the longing in her eyes is gone too. She seems more in control now and Villanelle wonders what brought this on.

They've never had sex without involving knives or something of that sort. Villanelle had never minded it with the violence but she also finds she likes it without it too.

“I'll go back to our seats. See you there in a few,” Eve says, her voice controlled as she presses one more kiss to Villanelle's mouth.

Eve leaves first, instructing Villanelle to wait before doing so too. Villanelle nods her head breathlessly because she needs a moment still to fix herself. Her hair is a mess and so is her clothing. But when she fixes herself up in the mirror, it's with a smile on her face. She enjoys Eve's touch.

When Villanelle exits the bathroom, the same elderly woman from before is there. Waiting to use it. “I heard some groaning coming in from here. Are you okay?” she asks and Villanelle has no shame at being heard.

“Bad clams,” she answers and leaves, finding her seat. She melts into it, having lost all of her energy from before. Now she just wants to wrap her arms around Eve and cuddle with her. But Eve has her paper in front of her, reading intently and pretending like nothing happened. And Villanelle watches her read, admiring the way her eyes skim from left to right. The way a furrow forms between her brows as some things trouble her. The way she hums when something catches her attention. It's all so fascinating and it fills Villanelle with wonder.

Villanelle watches and watches and wonders, if Eve could ever be as content with her as Villanelle is with Eve.


	20. What are you Doing, Eve?

“Fuck you, you fucking cunt!” is flung at Eve tastelessly. And there's Larry's famous anger, rearing it's ugly face.

“Don't take this personally, Larry,” Eve said as he lay bleeding out on the floor of his hotel room. Red mixed with green, making an ugly brownish color that would probably take forever to get out of the carpet. But that wasn't her job. Her job was to fix up Larry. 

“How else am I supposed to take this?” he spat, holding his wound, trying to stop the squirts from coming out with his bare hands. It wasn't doing much.

“You can blame the 12 for this,” she says, acting on a split second impulse.

“The 12?” he gurgles out, confused. His eyes are growing dimmer.

“Yes. They're doing a bit of house cleaning. Figured you weren't cut out for your promotion in the end.”

“Shit...” he breathes out, hands falling down. Not only had Eve killed him, but also crushed his heart along with his dreams.

She leaves him there, leaving the room quickly and acting as casual as she can. She dips out using the staff exit, going down an alley way and shedding the staff uniform she has on. Underneath she's got her clothing, a plain gray tee and smart cargo pants. She tosses pins out as she lets her curly hair unravel. And then to make sure her path won't be so easily followed, she takes several detours down winding roads and mingles with a crowd, just in case.

After that, she's in front of the hotel, where she knows Villanelle will be. The woman is still asleep in bed. No surprise there, as it's only nine in the morning on a Sunday, and Villanelle isn't technically working. Eve takes a moment to stand by her bed and look over her face with adoration when suddenly Villanelle roars up with a scream.

Eve screams right back and stumbles back, hitting the wall. Villanelle starts laughing. “Ah, you should have seen your face!” she holds her stomach as she laughs hard. Harder than she should. Eve is busy calming down her heart, not amused.

“Don't do that,” she warns, breathless from fright. “What if I had stabbed you out of reflex?”

“Then I would have enjoyed it,” Villanelle says with a casual shrug, finally regaining her composure. “So, how was the kill?”

“Good. Fine. Boring,” Eve comments, going to her suitcase which is by the armchair so she can change into something more suitable. Villanelle gets out of bed, stretching.

“Are we going to go on our date now?” Villanelle asks.

“Yes. We have a train ride to catch at two, so we'll have to be at the train station half an hour before that. Think you can manage?” Eve teases slightly.

“Of course, why wouldn't I manage?” Villanelle says and goes to the bathroom to get ready.

* * *

The town they're in doesn't leave much to do. So they simply get a filling lunch, sight see a bit as they hold hands, and then go back to the train, heading back home. When they do get back home, Villanelle invites Eve over to her flat for the first time ever.

And Eve is too curious to say no, even if common sense tells her this is going against the plan of normal but not too normal. Still, the flat is every inch what Eve imagines Villanelle's apartment to be. It's grand, and with the most random assortment of art hung up on the walls. There's even a bust of some roman emperor- Caligula, Eve guesses- that is used as a hanger for one of Villanelle's bras.

“Make yourself at home,” Villanelle says as she pops into the open plan kitchen. “Are you hungry? I'm going to make some dinner.”

“I could eat,” Eve says and plops down on the mint green couch in front of a flat screen TV that is hung up on the wall where sea shell patterns exist. The wallpaper is old and contradicts the modern TV. But Eve flicks it on and immediately what should pop up but a news report on the recent murder in an Irish hotel.

The camera angles really don't do Larry justice.

“Are they talking about your work?” Villanelle asks over the sizzling of the pan.

“Yes,” Eve nods her head. “Do you think maybe I should have gone about it a different way?”

Villanelle comes up and analyzes the images on the news, tipping her head to the side. She doesn't know the exact details of it, as Eve hasn't told her. Villanelle comes to a conclusion. “Well, it's not as discreet as you normally do.”

Eve nods her head in confirmation. She would have hid the body in the very least, tried not to get as much blood on the floor or at least have cleaned it up. But she hadn't. She'd gone in and out.

“Why do you think that is?” Eve asks, wanting to test Villanelle, to see if she was still sharp.

“You don't enjoy your job anymore,” Villanelle states softly. “You didn't care about being good anymore.”

“You're right, but it's also more than that. If I do my signature carefulness, they'll know I'll have defected to MI6's side. Then they'll have all the more reason to come after me. Or after you. This method buys us some time.”

Villanelle sucks in her bottom lip. “Do you really think they'll care enough about us to go after us?”

Eve opens her mouth, not sure what answer will fall out of it. The moment is ruined by a minor cooking emergency.

“Shit, the rice!” her eyes go wide as she smells something burnt and she runs over to try and save the dish. Eve chuckles, and gets up to help. In the end, the two of them make dinner and enjoy it with a nice vintage of white wine.

Eve feels content. More content than she has in a while, and as she swirls the wine in her glass, she looks over at Villanelle who is pretending to be engrossed in the movie they've put on. Eve feels something inside her chest clench. She can't feel this way. She shouldn't.

It'll make things more complicated. And if Villanelle knew the true depths of Eve's feelings for her...it might makes things even more complicated. So Eve can't feel this, this light hearted joy and affection. Instead, she shuffles closer to Villanelle on the couch, twirling a finger in the loose strand that is cascading down Villanelle's cheek, her ponytail slightly frazzled by the events in the kitchen.

Villanelle turns her head slowly to the side, her eyes meeting Eve's own.

Maybe if Eve could just indulge in this one, soft moment, then she would be fine. She could hold out. But what if she gets used to it? What if she craves more? And won't be able to stop herself?

So instead of saying, 'I adore you' she asks, “how strong is your bed?”

She watches as Villanelle's eyes darken, pupils growing wide. “I think it's pretty strong.”

“Good. Can you show me?” Eve states, gulping down the rest of her wine as Villanelle hurriedly gets up, tugging Eve along with her hand.

They tumble onto the bed, already half undressed by the time they get there. Eve is on top, Villanelle on the bottom, just like Eve likes it. Eve's hands rake unforgiving paths down Villanelle's sides, marking her, trying to raise blood in her way. Villanelle takes the hurt and makes it into pleasure, each damned time. Her hips rock up to where Eve's are slotted against hers. Their underwear is soaked, catching on each other as they begin a steady rhythm.

“Eve,” Villanelle moans as Eve leans down and kisses her hard to shut her up. Her teeth nip at eager lips and her hips rock harder and harder, pushing herself down into Villanelle as the bed creaks under them. Villanelle's hand tangle in Eve's locks, gripping them hard, making Eve hiss at the pain in the grip.

They never talk much when they're like this. They find their bodies know how to do the talking much better. Villanelle shudders and releases against Eve first, Eve following soon after, body locking up with pleasure.

She can feel Villanelle's hand trying to race down and remove her underwear but Eve snatches up her hands and stretches them above her head.

“No,” she breathes down harshly. Villanelle whimpers and thrusts up her hips, making a jolt shot through Eve who is still sensitive. In retaliation, Eve moves her hips back down, this time, a slow roll that will build them both up before it breaks them down.

With hungry lips she descends down Villanelle's neck, leaving marks of possession that she knows will only serve to turn her on every time she'll look at them when they're at work. So she's willfully sabotaging herself. But does she care?

No, not at all.

Not when Villanelle makes such lovely noises at each touch. Eve can't help but vocalize her pleasure either. It feels like being reborn again each and every time they do this. Niko never felt with this way and Eve removes him from her thoughts quickly. She doesn't need him in her thoughts right now.

Villanelle comes undone under her, underwear thoroughly soaked.

“Lower drawer,” she gasps out as her eyes flutter shut as Eve's lips suck behind her ear now, drawing out the heightened feel of the orgasm.

“Hm?”

“The strap on's there. Please, Eve. I need to feel you all the way inside me,” Villanelle confesses in a raspy voice. They haven't done this before. Eve has never done this before. But she gets up and without question fetches the requested item.

And that night, they really do make use of checking how sturdy the bed is. Eve nearly thinks they break it at one point, but it somehow lasts and later finds them lounging languidly on it, under the covers, breathing slowly returning to normal.

“Why don't you let me touch you?” Villanelle asks, the one question Eve dreads answering. 

“I like to be in control,” Eve replies without really thinking on it, because if she does, she might have an entirely different answer.

“But it's not fair to you. I want you to feel as good as I do,” Villanelle says.

“Maybe one day. But not today,” Eve half promises half threatens.

“Hm,” Villanelle makes out and snuggles up to Eve, one arm curled around her waist before her breath evens out and she drifts off into a content sleep, entirely too comfortable in an assassin's arms. Eve strokes her blonde lover's hair absent mindedly and looks up the ceiling.

Why couldn't she have this before? Why only now? If she had known love like this, if she had felt this way, would she have never killed all those men? Would she have been happy? Would it have prevented her from going down the path she did?

Memories run in front of her eyes.

Her being a criminal profiler. Her meeting Niko through a friend at one of the station's parties. The two of them connecting across the room, falling into one another's arms. Their love a whirlwind romance that fizzled out way too soon for Eve when the excitement wore off. And it wore off fast. Within the first year of her marriage. But, she couldn't find a way to divorce him. She just couldn't. Because he never did anything fucking wrong. He was too kind, too understanding. Too patient with her. And it drove her crazy, day by day, until she hated him so much for being so good to her. Because she didn't feel the same for him, because he was suffocating her with his love even if she gave up trying to even show him a shred of decency.

She treated him like he was another stranger on the streets. Cordial but never delving deeper than that. And she never bothered to hide her anger from him. Or her nastier mood swings. And he weathered them, like a sturdy stone that had witnessed many crashed ships on it's form but never dissolving.

So she'd taken her anger out on unsuspecting men. Men who looked like him. And she found once she'd done the deed, she felt so much more sane. So much more able to go back home and actually be kind to him. Her love for him returned in those moments. He was delighted when it happened and they ended up having lots of sex during those time periods, going out to eat, even taking weekend trips. Things were good in those post kill months.

And Eve was always discreet about it. She didn't want to be linked back to her crimes. And since she worked closely with the law, she had ways of knowing what to do to get away with it all. Or at least she thought she'd never get caught. Until her third hit and she was contacted afterwards by a mysterious man.

She'd been on vacation with Niko, coming into the hotel room to change from her bathing suit so they could go out for dinner later. Except she'd gone into the bathroom and come out backwards, hands up, as a man in all black and with slicked back hair, approached her.

He backed her up into the wall, breath smelling foul as her chest heaved. Who was he, and why was he here and could she make a run for it?

“Hello, Eve,” he said, British voice nasty. “My name is Raymond. I was hoping we'd have a little chat.”

And from there, things had never been the same. Eve had been offered a job opportunity. To work as an assassin. A life of excitement, was what she had been promised. And it was one. She got to travel the world, try new foods, see the culture there first hand. And the killing, well that was perfunctory. She took no real joy from it, only when she had done those personal murders of men who looked like Niko.

But, with her job as an assassin the first three years were good, until it no longer was exciting. She began to grow bored. Began to question herself for doing such a thing. Had she done it for the sake of her marriage? Had she done it so that she wouldn't be alone when she grew older? Or had she done it because she was never satisfied with anything and wanted to take that frustration out on someone else? Truly, she didn't know the answer. Her mind was a jumble even on the best of days. And on the worst it was even less comprehensible.

Maybe there simply was no answer to why she did the things she did. And who cared? Life had to keep on moving ahead and she sure as hell wanted to move on ahead to better things. It wasn't until Villanelle that she found a purpose again. Eve had been in a dead end position, with no way to escape. She was in a marriage where even murdering the occasional Niko look alike had stopped making her fake loving him.

Villanelle gave her hope- made Eve think she could be interesting if another person chased her around the world for it. And Villanelle's love was different from Niko's. It wasn't plain and simple, but complicated with it's ups and downs. It wasn't a safe love. Villanelle could wake up one morning and realize she never loved Eve, that it was just an infatuation. Or she could love her more and more each day.

Both of which weren't good outcomes.

Eve was glad she'd taken up the mantle of assassin if only because she met Villanelle. Had saved her in the past and now Villanelle was saving her in the future.

And if Eve had met Villanelle at first, then maybe she could have been normal.

But she wasn't. And neither was Villanelle. And maybe that would just be how Eve's world turned.


	21. Una-peel-ing

Eve gets used to this. Used to working for MI6 which she can't decide is either great or is pathetic.

She and Villanelle have gotten incredibly domestic. Despite Eve trying everything- okay, she didn't try _that_ hard- they've become this way. And it worries her at the same time it exhilarates her.

It's everything she wanted. And everything she prevented herself from having for a long, long time. It makes her glow, as silly as it sounds. But it does. And she can't ever recall being this happy before.

Yes, despite them being domestic, Hugo hasn't gotten the message.

“Hugo, Villanelle and I are involved,” she tells him for not the last time as she makes photo copies. The machine is stubborn and prejudiced she supposes because it never seems to want to work for her. Damned thing.

“Yes, I know that,” he says with a smarmy grin, hands in the pockets of his trousers.

“Then why do you keep propositioning me?” she gives him a gimlet look.

“Because you don't sound official.” Eve opens her mouth to retort to this but he beats her to it. “You refuse to call her your girlfriend, soulmate, future wife, whatever,” he makes an etc motion with his hands. “You're just, lovers.” He makes the word sound dirty.

“And what's wrong with lovers?” Eve posits. Offended, yes, she's feeling offended.

“Because they aren't anything more than fuck buddies, aren't they?” he posits right back with a knowing grin.

She scoffs. “Did Oksana put you up to this?” Because Eve wouldn't be surprised if the blonde did want more from her. She can see it brewing in her, waiting on the tip of her tongue. But she always bites it back down. That is incredible self restraint from her.

“No, she did not. I'm putting you up to this,” he tells her earnestly and she did not think him capable of being so considerate of others.

“I can't believe you're trying to get me to make it more official with Oksana by trying to have sex with me. You know, there are other ways of going about this.” The machine makes a noise and she frowns, smacking it to get it to start chugging along again. And it does.

He shrugs, not hurt by her assessment. “Sex is the only language I know how to speak well.”

“I appreciate you trying but....”

“But what?”

She sighs, the photo copies spits out paper into the loading tray. “I don't think I can.”

“What's stopping you?” he leans against the machine and it stops printing. She glares at him. He leans off; it works again. Fickle beast, she thinks of the machine. She might need to have a word with it later. A very sharp word.

“We both work in an unsuitable fields for romance. I have the 12 breathing down my neck, no doubt looking for any excuse to kill me. And so does Oksana.”

“She did some bad things to them?” he questions.

“She did. But they might not care enough about her unless they figure out I'm with her. Then, she becomes as much a target as I do.”

“Did you explain this to her?”

“I shouldn't have to. It's obvious,” Eve retorts. The papers are done; she collects them.

“She might not think that way. You should tell her, just to be on the safe side.” He claps her on the arm and leaves.

“Does this mean you'll stop asking me for sex?” she calls after him.

“Maybe!” he shoots back and she chuckles.

“Asshole,” she says fondly.

* * *

“Oksana, let's talk.”

Oksana makes a face. “Oh-oh, what is this about?” she looks fearful.

They're on line at the canteen. Eve behind Oksana as they get today's food. It awful as usual.

“Don't be nervous.”

“Why shouldn't I be? No one ever says that when they want to talk about good things.” Oksana sits down, Eve sits in front of her.

“This isn't a bad thing.”

“Then what is it?”

“It's....an explanation.”

“Oh.” Oksana stops eating, looks at Eve as if she's seeing her in another light.

“I...I may have been cold to you these past couple of days and I don't mean it because I'm mad at you. It's because I'm worried for you.”

“Okay,” Oksana puts down her fork slowly. “Why are you worried for me.”

“Do I need to spell it out for you?” Eve says, a bit snappish. “I'm wanted by the 12. If they find out you're dating me, you could also be in trouble. They could use to get to me, or just kill you out of spite.”

Oksana reaches across the table and holds Eve's tightly clenched hand in her own. Eve had been working herself up and hadn't even noticed it. “Eve, don't worry. You're not the only one who is an assassin.”

“You failed to kill your first target.”

“Only because it was you,” Oksana says with a light hearted wink that has Eve's chest fluttering. “Besides, I've killed others. And managed it quite well. I can protect myself. Or in the very least I won't go without a fight, hm?”

And, Eve feels better to hear this. It seems she was the one not considering all the facts. Oksana knew the dangers but she was prepared. And Eve had momentarily forgotten that Oksana had killed too.

But whatever reassurance she receives from this conversation is short lived, because things begin to fall in place that she wishes didn't fall in place at all.

* * *

“Who am I killing this time?” Eve asks, a hint tired. She's been with MI6 for three months now and while she enjoys it, it's also starting to vaguely become annoying. Not boring. Because she's aware of the target on her back. Konstantin had called her and said that her attempt to fake her own death had not worked for long. Which means she won't be able to go around for MI6, cleaning up their messes for long. The only problem is, how will she fix this new problem of hers? Konstantin offers no solutions, only because he's no longer her handler and no longer responsible for her actions.

So it'll be up to herself to clean up her messes.

“Aaron Peel,” Elena fires up the powerpoint and Eve sips on her coffee contemplatively. He looks like an incel, is what she determines and finds it to be much too true later on. But she never speaks on it publicly.

“Oh, Eve, I think you'll have fun killing this one,” Villanelle whispers to her as Elena goes through the slides, naming Aaron Peel as a megalomaniac intent on selling information that can be weaponized to the world. He's highly guarded, however, and very careful. So how will they get to him?

Eve chuckles at Oksana's comment and shakes her head. “He seems like a dick. But not the fun kind.”

“Are they ever any fun?” Oksana banters and Hunter clears his throat next to them so they'll shut up. It only makes Eve want to talk more just to get on his nerves. She really doesn't like him. And if she looks hard enough, maybe she can find a resemblance of Niko on him, in his eyes and the downturn of his lips. And that would give her enough reason to kill him.

But she won't do it. Not yet.

Not until all the pieces are in place. But she knows for sure she wants him gone.

For Oksana's sake if not her own. How could Oksana stood to have worked with a prick like him for so long?

“Eve, any suggestions on how we get to him?” Elena asks as she concludes the all too brief briefing.

Eve clears her throat, all eyes on her. “He's a cautious man, as you've said. So it likely won't be easy to get close him. I couldn't pretend to be an employee because an entry level job requires too much specialized skill that I don't have. Additionally I wouldn't be close enough to him and it might take me months to map out the workings of his company and get him to a good enough spot to stop him. By then, it might be too late.” She plays with the cup in her hand, sitting up straighter. “Neither could I fool my way to his side romantically as I'm not his type. Nor could I work out an angle with getting in with his sister as a friend. What I could do, is work with the murder of his father.”

“How would you do that? The blokes dead- heart attack,” Kenny points out.

“I know that. I do. But, I could go in as an investigator. Ask some questions, get a feel for him. I did study criminal psychology before I was an assassin and I do know how to profile people,” she says confidentially. “Get me a fake profile and a way to talk to him, and some way to examine the father's body.”

“Do you think...he killed his father?” Elena pushes.

“I specialize in discreet assassinations. Accidental or 'natural' causes,” Eve explained calmly as they listened intently to her. “I cannot a hundred percent say this was a murder until I can examine the body. There does seem to be motive, as the son now owns the company and if we know he intends to weaponize the information as detailed to us by intel services, then it's plausible he had done something.”

Elena nods her head. “Alright. Kenny and Hugo you work on getting Eve an interview with him. And Hunter and I will work on getting access to the body.”

“And what of me?” Oksana asked with a small pout.

“You can be my handler when I go get the asshole,” Eve smiled at her, and Oksana smiled back just as widely.

* * *

It's not hard knowing what questions to ask Aaron Peel. What is hard, is getting to talk to him for longer than ten minutes. The asshole has his lawyer present and refuses to answer any deeper questions on what it is she needs to know. So, she thanks him falsely for his time, and leaves. At least she knows he exhibits some questionable behavior; however she cannot give a full diagnosis from this. The body of his father reveals more answers.

“Yup, murder alright. A forced heart attack,” Eve points at the spot between big toe and second toe where there is a hole. This assassin has a good understanding of science, and anatomy. And perhaps even medicine? But without other bodies to gleam information from, they don't have much to go on. “He used to get pedicures once a week. Not too hard to figure out how this happened,” Eve reports when she's back in the office.

“Should we potentially hunt down the assassin he's hired to do this?” Elena asks and Eve immediately shakes her head. “If we get him, he won't be able to hire the assassin. Besides, what he is doing is potentially more dangerous than the work of one woman. He would hurt thousands of people!”

“Why do you think it's a woman,” Hugo asks and Eve rolls her eyes.

“I know it's a woman, and I also know it's an Asian woman because people like that have an easier job sneaking into the role of help and getting closer to the intended target. No one would suspect someone who gets ignored on a daily basis. It's what helped me be so discreet. And this woman is aiming to go the same way. Aaron Peel is smart, which is why I can't do the assassination.” Eve had thought this over, and it was the best course of action. She wouldn't be of any use this time around; at least not in the expected manner.

“What!” bursts out of Elena. “Then what are we supposed to do?”

Eve smiles in small satisfaction as she says this. “We send in Oksana.”

“Me?” Oksana bursts out, looking surprised and pleasantly shocked.

“Are you kidding? We can't send her! You're the designated assassin for this job!” Hunter yells and slaps the table angrily. Eve gives him the side eye.

“Aaron Peel is a careful man. I can't go in. He'll recognize me from when I talked to him. Oksana, however, he didn't see. And she has the skills to kill a man in cold blood if need be. I've seen it first hand.”

Oksana shrugs, proud of this. The rest of the crew don't know how to react to that point, so they don't. They move on. “And just how exactly is this going to work out?” Kenny poises.

“I'll act as handler for Oksana. And I'll be on duty close to site when she's working the case-”

“No, the other logistics,” Elena cuts in as Oksana sits happily, glad to be given a chance to shine on the field and have yet another adventure with Eve.

“On how we get Oksana in?” Eve asks and receives a vigorous head nod, telling her to continue.

Eve rakes a hand through wild locks. “That I haven't figured out yet. I was thinking that Oksana could either befriend the sister somehow, or we could set her up as a potential buyer.”

“And how would we set her up as a buyer?” Kenny asks.

Eve flattens her shirt, bolstering herself with her hand on her stomach. “I could approach Aaron as a corrupt MI6 agent-which wouldn't unbelievable since I've already interviewed him-, presenting for Oksana. But I would need an air tight profile for her. And an even better one for myself, because then I do know he would look into me, more than a surface level search.”

“Alright,” Elena rolls back her shoulders. “Then I suppose we better get a move on and decide which route we want to take.”

“Personally I think I would make a very sexy buyer, and you should make me some bad ass woman,” Oksana speaks up, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“I'll see what I can do,” Kenny answers while Hunter snorts and then they all go back to their desk jobs.


	22. This is Where it All Ends

Eve had made Hunter's death to be an accident, but, given how Carolyn knew the two of them didn't get along well enough, would probably be a huge clue as to what had actually happened. Regardless, things were coming to a head, and Eve had several loose ends to tie up. She knew Villanelle wouldn't be happy, but then again, neither would Eve.

It was one of the hardest choices she had to make and she regretted having to do it.

But for once, she had to do the right thing.

“Is everything in order?” Konstantin asked on the other end of the phone as Eve had it tucked between her ear and shoulder. She was furiously scrubbing her hands, trying to get them clean. She was back in her house now but hadn't bothered to change her slightly dirtied clothes. She wanted to relish them for a second longer, because it reminded her of Hunter's death and it truly had been so therapeutic ending his life. He was an asshole.

“Yes, it is. I planned it all out, twice. Just to make sure.”

“Good. It wouldn't have been smart for you to continue being in MI6 anyways. Carolyn would have gotten rid of you after she made you take the fall for the Aaron Peel case going bad.”

Eve pauses on the phone. How does Konstantin know about the case? He's got contacts in MI6, sure, but how high up are they? “It hasn't gone bad.”

“But it will. She'll make sure of it.”

“That's why I didn't tell her everything,” Eve explains smugly.

“Oh, you have a backup plan?”

“You taught me to always have one.”

“What is it?” he asks with too much interest.

“I'm not telling you that. You're friends with Carolyn.” Now she knows how his contact is. Her hunch has been proven right.

“I'm friends with everyone.”

“Exactly, which means I shouldn't trust you anymore with anything.” There is silence on the line. “But, thank you, for when you were on my side. Thank you for your help then.” She means this seriously.

“You're very welcome Eve,” he told her somberly. “And don't fuck up your plans. Because my help truly ends here. There is no more I can do for you once you pull this off.”

“I know,” she says and sighs out heavily, leaning against the sink. They'd spent so many years together. Not quite friends, but not quite enemies. Always balancing precariously in the middle.

“Goodbye, Ghost.”

“Goodbye, Konstantin.”

And that is it. The last time Eve will ever talk to him. She knows it for sure. He did her one last huge favor, and it's her job to make the most out of it. Eve knew Carolyn couldn't be trusted. People in the higher up levels with too much power, never could be.

She'd learned that long ago. Which was why an average person, the person who had nothing left to lose, could only ever be truthful.

She unzipped her jacket and let it fall to the ground, gathering up her hair into a bun. It was time to get serious, if she wanted to have a future. If she wanted Villanelle to have one as well. She sheds the rest of her clothes haphazardly and sinks into a warm bath, closing her eyes to the scent of lavender as she brainstorms ideas.

…

The mission takes place in Rome.

Rome, is a wonderful city, but Eve isn't here to take in the sights. She's here to finish a missions she's started. So far the plan she and MI6 came up with has worked. She approached Aaron as a corrupt worker and he seemed to buy into her shtick of wanting to use that data to take down the government for China, as she was actually a double agent.

He searched into her, and with Kenny's technological prowess they were able to make her have history of searching out data and of having grown up in one of China's poorer Providences. The Eve Polastri from Massachusetts did not exist.

He agreed to meet with her liaison who would be Villanelle. But he only agreed to it in Rome, where he had a meeting planned with other potential buyers. If he liked what she offered, then he would accept. If not, then Eve lost her chance at having Villanelle kill him.

Things would have to be carefully plotted. But knowing Villanelle's rash behavior, this would not be a likely situation. And it wasn't like Eve had much more patience for these sorts of things either. But she forced herself to.

Because patience was needed in this game. The meeting was happening in a business building that Aaron selected. There was a row of apartments in front of it that Eve used to set up a sniper rifle. She kept it positioned on the room at all times, not even looking away as the hot sun beat down on her too warmly dressed form.

She had done a sweep of the roofs, all was clear. And she'd given Villanelle a mic to wear so that Eve could listen in. There was a safe word too, given to them by MI6. 'Gentlemen'. Eve wanted to laugh out loud when Carolyn told them it. Seriously? Eve was supposed to use that? It was a trap, plain and simple. But she'd merely nodded her head and when it was just her and Oksana, told the blonde quietly not to use that word, but to use one that Eve came up, just the two of them.

Oksana listened, not even really doubting Eve's words. She trusted Eve too much, which was why Eve was following through on her own private plan in order to save them both.

“Good evening,” Oksana greeted as she stepped into the room. A response followed and then Aaron got right into the deal making. Oksana seemed to be following the script for now and Eve allowed her attention to fan out, senses on high alert. That's when she felt it.

Eyes.

Not only eyes, but eyes that held an intent in them. A killing intent.

Eve was immediately spring-boarding up from her flat position to one upright, spotting the unwelcome guest who had snuck up here to join her.

Of course. He had brought his assassin with him, to scour the rooftops, to keep him safe.

“Don't even think about it,” Eve pulled out a spare hand gun from her bulky jacket, pointed it at her. The Asian woman in front of her said nothing. She didn't move either, not even to drop the syringe in her hand, which she had planned on probably planting in Eve's neck when Eve had been focused on the sniper gun.

She stares the woman down. She's young, younger than Eve. Why would she do such a thing? Why was she an assassin? “You don't need to do this for him. It'll be over soon,” Eve says, not the least bit scared.

“I can't,” the woman speaks in perfect English. “I need the job.”

“You need the job more than your own life?” Eve asks, shaking her head, pitying this woman.

“This job is my only way of life,” the woman speaks, though there is a tight lipped quality to her. A stubbornness that Eve cannot penetrate with her words.

She knows to give up. This woman's life cannot be spared. So she penetrates her with bullets. She lets fly two bullets, the silencer making the shots quiet. The woman doesn't even make a noise as she falls, bleeding out on the sun baked roof of someone's apartment complex.

Eve tucks the still smoking gun into her jacket and crotches back by the sniper. It seems she hasn't missed too much of the meeting. They've wrapped up. She presses the ear piece to listen in, hearing the ruffling of papers, the squeaking of shoes. Villanelle wasn't able to convince Aaron to hand the data over to them.

“I'm afraid I must reject your offer,” he told her dryly. “I'm not interested in what you or Eve may want. As such, I'll be removing you from my cache of clientele.”

In fact, she catches the entrance of two guards making their way past the other windows to get to this room. And then two more from the other side of the building. All towards the room Villanelle is in. This can't be good.

“Oranges, Villanelle,” Eve breathes into the mic, telling her they've been made- but by which side she isn't sure. She can't tell if those are Aaron's guards or MI6's agents. “We've got two men from your left and two from your right, armed, coming into this room!” Eve won't be able to take them all out. Villanelle runs to the door, locking it, and throwing the chair she had been sitting on against the frame so that even if the handle was unlocked, they wouldn't be able to get in.

“What are you doing?” Aaron Peel demands, still so arrogant even when he was trapped in the room with such a dangerous woman.

“Shut up!” she screams at him, just as the banging on the door starts. He moves to get up and Eve lines him up in her sights, pulling the trigger. He falls back down into his seat, head dropping forward, leaking brain matter.

“You need to go,” she warns Villanelle, reloading the gun. The case drops with a metallic ping onto the roof.

“And where am I supposed to go?” Villanelle yells, frantically looking the room over for weapons, for another exit. There is none. Aaron had made sure the room was too clean.

“Get on the window ledge and scoot over to the next room. Once they're inside I can try and pick them off.”

“I'm ten stories up!” Villanelle exclaims but she does as told, breaking the rest of the cracked window with her elbows, tossing her pink wig aside so it wouldn't get in her way. She hugs the walls, standing on a ledge that is barely an inch wide. Eve's heart is hammering in her chest for Villanelle. They're both scared, their fear telepathic. Eve swallows in a dry throat; the door breaks open under the heavy administration of the four armed guards.

Eve quick scopes the first one, and he tumbles to the ground. The others flinch, trying to gauge where it's coming from. But their too slow. Eve gets the second one, who hasn't figured out the best place to hide is from the sight of the window.

Villanelle is inching her way slowly across to the other window. “It's not open Eve!” she exclaims.

“I know. There's one open at the end of the building. Just keep going, and keep calm. I'm coming to get you as soon as I take them out,” Eve says, looking through the scope. They're sticking to the walls. A few round get fired as a hand makes an appearance by the window, shooting blind. The bullets will never hit her.

“Holy shit Eve. Is this the kind of stuff you had to run from as an assassin?” Villanelle says, and her voice is light now. Amused even. And proud of Eve.

“I was more discrete with my work, so no, not really,” she said, biting back a laugh. Villanelle always did have the more inappropriate humor. “Alright, it looks like the two armed guards have retreated into the building,” she comments. “I'm going inside and I'm taking them out.”

“I could try and take them out too,” Villanelle offers as she slowly edges back to the room she came from, much more quickly this time. She knew she could use the weapons left over.

Eve looks away from the scope, knowing Villanelle has escaped the brunt of the event. “If you think so, you can do it. But do try to be discrete.”

“Discrete is my middle name,” Villanelle snorts. “And Eve, you really need to stop staring at my ass when we're on these missions.”

Eve rolls her eyes. She'd only looked once this time. “Just get to the ground floor. I'll met you there.” She packs up her weapon, spares a last glance at the other assassin and then goes down to ground floor to meet Villanelle whose running and got blood on her clothing. “Hurry,” she sings gleefully and grabs Eve by the sleeves, tugging her away.

Eve can hear loud voice following them and already knows Villanelle had probably gone around guns blazing.

“I have somewhere we can go,” Eve tells her and leads the way, Villanelle hiding her weapons when they get on a more crowded part of the street. They walk for a while, taking twisting alleyways and detours, even an underground passage as they finally emerge in some ruins, Eve having shed her sniper gun case in one of the dumpsters on the way. Eve has selected this location specifically so that they'll have some privacy for this moment. She steels herself, clenching her jaw.

This is where it'll all end. The gun in her pocket burns.


	23. Nice Face

“That, was amazing!” Villanelle gushes as they walk around the ruins. She's clearly over her fear, almost as if it was never there. “I've always wanted to do that with you Eve.” She goes to hold Eve's hands, excitement in her eyes. Eve pulls back and Villanelle frowns, finally noticing something is wrong.

“Eve, what's happening?”

“Villanelle, we can't keep doing this. Can't keep pretending.”

Villanelle huffs, puts her hands on her hips like Eve is being a petulant child. “I'm confused. What is this about?”

“It's about me. And the mess my life is- you shouldn't have to be drawn into it, clinging from walls, being hunted down by guards. Dealing with assholes like Aaron.”

Villanelle contemplates Eve's face; tries to understand this. She fails, even if she doesn't try to.

“I told you, didn't I?”

“Tell me what?”

“That I would follow your way of life. And that eventually I would reach you,” Villanelle said, cupping Eve's cheek.

“That was so not your plan. You half assed it on the go.”

“Don't we all?” Villanelle said with a shrug. “But now, you can work for us. You can take down the 12. You won't have to worry about them anymore.”

“Again you're doing this shit.” Eve shakes her head, steps back. The smile drops from Villanelle's face like a rock in water. “You're living in a fantasy world. Being an assassin wasn't what you thought it would be so you moved onto something else. And what now, we play cops and robbers together? Go after the bad guy while holding hands and skipping? Saving the world together?” She shakes her head, taking a step back, then another. “They may have overlooked my crimes with my assassin job because some of the people were bad. But the men I killed in my own spare time? Do you think they'll over look that?”

When Villanelle doesn't answer, Eve does for her. “No, they won't.”

“I told you, they don't have to know-”

“I turned myself into the cops for it. I did. So they will find out, shortly if they don't already know. All they have to do is investigate a bit further.”

“I won't let them,” spat vehemently. “I won't let anyone hurt you.”

Eve chuckles. It's mean. Dark. Pitying. “You won't.”

“But I love you.”

“No, you don't. You're obsessed with me. It's not the same.”

“I do love you.”

“No.”

“Yes, I do!” Villanelle is getting drastic here. Desperate. It's not becoming on her.

Eve scowled. “You don't know what love is. Whatever you feel can never compare to what love is.”

“What do I have to do to prove to you I love you?”

Eve looks at her. Square in the eye. She mouths the words, a complete silence falling over them, over the world, as if stopped for a moment. Stopped from the heavy implications of Eve's wish. And Villanelle shakes her head, tears coming to the edges. She's the one backing up from Eve now. Like she's scared of her. “How can you ask me-”

“If you really want to, you'll free me from my life choices. And after all, isn't it romantic to be tragic?”

“Eve, I can't-”

“Then don't. But you can never really love me if you don't.” Eve sighs, tired. “I will never believe it when you say you do.”

Villanelle's chin wobbles. “All this time you ask me of my love. Of it's validity. But what of yours? Do you love me the same way? How can I know it?”

“I loved you from the moment you stepped foot into that bar and opened your mouth to me,” Eve says easily and without shame over the distance between them. This revelation chokes Villanelle with emotion. Her face wars as it tries to decide if she's going to happy about this, or more upset.

Because Eve gave no fucking indication of this. Villanelle had pined and tried to seduce and try to charm, just to see a tiny bit of affection from Eve, from Eve who she thought was merely tolerating her.

“There was this instant connection that told me we were kindred souls, lost in a wayward world. And I didn't want to condemn you to being with me, because I already cared for you so much,” Eve concludes. “And I see what being with me does to people. It ruins them,” she says bitterly.

“Stop that. You are not toxic. You are a mess, yes, but not toxic,” Villanelle tries, stepping closer but only one step. “And I already said, I want everything with you.”

“And I want everything with you. But don't hate me for the decision of wanting that.” Eve's voice wavers and she swallows down the lump in her throat. “And please, I don't want you to regret the relationship,” she whispers because her voice is failing her.

Villanelle nods her head, her own throat tight.

“You know what you need to do,” Eve gathers herself, makes her voice hard. She makes herself cold. Cold like a rock.

“Eve, I-”

“Do it. It's the only way.”

“But-”

“I know it is. There is no other way.”

Villanelle's hand shakes as she lifts the gun. She steadies it with her other hand. The shaking doesn't stop. Why is it so difficult to pull the trigger now?

“What are you waiting for? Do it!” Eve's growing impatient because the longer this draws out, the less she wants to do it. The more it starts to seem like a bad idea.

“I'm trying to- I am!” Villanelle shouts back, frustrated.

“Don't you want to hurt me? Get revenge for me stabbing you?”

“I do-”

“So then what are you waiting for?”

“I don't know. I don't know!” Villanelle screams.

“So fucking DO IT!”

“I WILL. I'LL DO IT!”

Eve feels wild, throat burning as she screams. “PULL THE TRIGGER YOU FUCKING COWARD!”

Villanelle drops the gun. “I can't,” she says softly, the cadence of it almost lost because their ears are ringing from all the shouting.

Eve chest heaves up and down, and she's disappointed. Full of adrenaline she makes a show of twisting her ring-

Villanelle's eyes flare open in panic. She reaches out a hand as if to stop her. “Eve, no!”

Too late. There is a prick as the ring's poison is injected into Eve's blood stream.

_Two Years Later _

Oksana's just come home from work, carrying the briefcase stuffed full of papers in it. She's tired, over worked, but that's what happens when MI6 suddenly decides to get rid of a team because there's no more reason for it's existence. No more 'Ghost' to hunt down.

Working as an accountant. Can you believe that? It's laughable, so far from the fabulous adventure filled life she wanted. But maybe she needed a break from it. A break from being manipulated by those close to her.

Oksana refuses to think about the past.

About that day.

The way she'd screamed Eve's name. Ran to get help, only to come back and find no one there. Eve had disappeared. Turned into a ghost.

Oksana had never felt as lost as she did that moment. Like her tether to this world was gone. Even finding out about Hunter's death, which Eve had probably done as a favor to her, was no reprieve from the emptiness in her body.

An aching, emptiness that seemed to reach every corner of her life. She hated it, needed it. At least she knew with this pain that she was still alive.

She sets her briefcase down, takes off her shoes, and sorts through her mail with a tired indifference. She stops when she comes across a postcard. Who would send her a postcard, especially this time of year?

She turns it over to see a bunch of numbers there. Her brain, dulled by months of numbers, suddenly sparks alive. Her breath catches in her throat.

It's coordinates. Nothing else follows them. She flips the card over, notices the picture on it. “All's Swell in Ireland,” it says and she smiles as she tucks it away.

She doesn't bother to pack. She just leaves.

* * *

“Two years. Two fucking years, and all you send was a postcard?” Villanelle asks with a snort as she sits down. No, plops down. Because she is weary and two years older. She's not young anymore.

“Should I have sent purple hyacinths?”

“I did like them the last time you sent them,” Villanelle admits with a hum. 

“I wanted to contact you earlier. But I didn't want it to be too soon. Otherwise our plan wouldn't have worked.”

“A plan I still don't know the full extent of.”

“You're intelligent. You can make it out,” Eve states confidently.

Villanelle humphs lightly, because Eve might actually not be right this time on Villanelle's skills. And Villanelle for once might have to admit she's not right either. This will be a most devastating blow to her ego. But truly, all she has is half baked ideas, treacherous longing for Eve, and hopeful hallucinations of what could be.

“Do they think I'm dead,” Eve asks as they sit on the grass, knees to chest, long blades scratching their face, wind rolling down the hills and the darkened sky threatening rain above them. They look out at endless hills, dipping and rising and so monotonous in their grand scale of nature. They are but two bugs sitting on her land and she lets them, for now.

Their lives could be squashed so easily.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Even I thought you were dead.”

A longer pause before, “good.”

“Now what?” Villanelle asks and she hates how small she feels.

“How did you die?” because Eve has a feeling Villanelle did this. Call it a gut instinct. 

Villanelle smiles, that too wide smile that shows all of her teeth. “Fancy. I made a real big show of it.”

“Naturally.” Eve wouldn't expect any less of her.

Several beats of silence as Villanelle's light eyes look at Eve, drinking her in openly. “You cut your hair.”

“It was getting too long,” is the explanation. Eve's hand self consciously goes to her shortened locks. They reach her chin but no further.

“You know I loved your hair,” Villanelle frowns.

“That's why I cut it. That's the real test. Not you having to kill me for me.”

Villanelle sticks out her tongue. “And here I am. And now that it's almost all gone, I can see your face and how beautiful it is too.” Villanelle strokes a finger down the back of Eve's cheek. Eve does not turn into the caress. Doesn't look at Villanelle.

“And what if my face were to go next?” she asks, serious.

“Then I would find something else that I loved about you.”

“Do you only love me piece by piece?” is the quiet uncertainty. “All the broken parts but not the whole?”

Villanelle sighs, turns to look outwards. Drops her hand from Eve. “I can only love what you yourself loved first.”

Eve gives a wry smile. “I hate it when you say things like that.” But it was true. She had never really loved her hair. It always gave her so much trouble. Her face though, well it gave her trouble when it was time to run from the law, but she did like it. Even when it had been the sole racial reason for why she'd been adopted. It was her face after all.

“And what of you proving your love to me?” Villanelle asks, melancholic all of a sudden.

There is rustling and Eve pulls out a box from her pocket. “When we first met that faithful night. You gave me a ring. A special ring.” she clears her throat, suddenly feeling shy. Villanelle's head slowly turns to look at Eve, eyes wide and mouth slightly askew. “So, I want to return the favor.” She opens the box, showing a ring with an even bigger diamond. “Except, this one doesn't have special tricks to protect you. It won't need that. _You_ won't need that, because when you wear it, you'll have me there to protect you.”

Villanelle's lips twist up as she tries really hard not to become sappy in this moment. “I hate you,” she says when she finds the tears slipping free anyways. But because she's so close to tears it comes out sounding more like a whine. “I hate you so much.”

“This isn't a wedding proposal or anything,” Eve clarifies. “Because we're not ready for that. But.....I just want you to know that I will never stop trying to protect you, whether it's from me or from the outside world.”

Villanelle throws her arms around Eve and just holds her there, the tears she tries so hard to hold back staining Eve's shirt.

And Eve just smiles into the hold, hugging back, and finally, feeling warm.


	24. End Game

They're not perfect. And they know this. They also know they're going to hurt each other, over and over again, but what love doesn't hurt in the sweetest way?

Villanelle's going to give Eve a reason to continue living, going to give her a fresh start. And Eve's going to go to therapy. She's going to try to untangle the mess of her mind and soul and try to soothe the demons there. She knows she can do it. Because she wants to stop hurting. Herself, others. People she loves.

Life might be boring, and she might do impulsive insane things like she once did, but with therapy maybe she can learn ways to adjust to this.

Villanelle.....well, she's too proud to go to therapy and she doesn't see anything in herself she needs to fix. She's just happy to be in love, to feel this way for someone else because it makes her feel like she is finally human after so long. Because she can feel. She can hurt and be happy and all of it because of Eve.

They are each others rocks. Used to weather out the storms that will come. And there will be many storms to come, that is certain. Because while the hardest part of being together is over, that part of their life will never truly leave them. And they must live with the weight of what they've done. Of what they will continue to do.

“You know, you never told me how you survived that,” Villanelle says after they've made love rigorously. Eve hadn't been able to resist Villanelle, wearing that plaid flannel and carrying an ax that in this case was going to be used to chop wood. She just looked like Eve's own lumberjack lesbian that Eve had to pull her into their bed and use that ax to cut off the clothes she was wearing.

“I worked with poison's a lot. One has to develop a tolerance for them if they do.”

“Hm, nice to know,” Villanelle hums lightly. She's ready to drift off into blissful sleep but Eve is not yet done. She straddles Villanelle's naked lap and twirls a strand of her hair around her finger.

“I want you....to touch me,” she says and Villanelle nearly chokes in surprise on air.

“What?” she's not sure she heard right but Eve repeats herself. “Touch me.”

This is something momentous. Eve never let Villanelle touch her. Never in bed. So it's why Villanelle has to ask to make sure. “Are you sure..?”

“Yes.”

Villanelle laughs, hands going up Eve's naked sides. She's wanted this for so long. It's a dream come through in all the best ways. She doesn't know where to even start. “I can touch you,” Villanelle says with awe and Eve blinks before affirming. “Yes, for the rest of our days.”

And Villanelle surges up to kiss her to cement this fact.

They don't leave the bed for many hours.


End file.
